


Son of Chaos

by Arabesqueangel, Rabentochter



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, BAMF Nebula (Marvel), BAMF Tony Stark, Canon Divergence - Avengers (2012), Dark Loki (Marvel), Frigga (Marvel) Knows All, Gen, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Memory Loss, Mind Control, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, POV Alternating, POV Loki (Marvel), POV Tony Stark, Post-Thor (2011), Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2019-09-12 16:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 36
Words: 69,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16876170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arabesqueangel/pseuds/Arabesqueangel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabentochter/pseuds/Rabentochter
Summary: The Children of Thanos are feared throughout the Galaxy: Ebony Maw, Cull Obsidian, Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, Nebula, Gamora and Loki. Thanos has finally decided that the time has come for a massive gambit. He sends his "children" to obtain the remaining 5 Infinity Stones in a competition to determine who will be his right hand when he has accomplished his ultimate goal. Loki is sent to Midgard to obtain the Space Stone. But he quickly runs into a snag in the form of an agency dubbed SHIELD and a man of metal.So Loki has to take a different approach, one that has him seeking help from a puny mortal, his sister, anyone. Loki knows that the Man of Metal, Tony Stark is the one to beat. The one problem is that he seems strangely vulnerable to the Iron Man's blows. What are these odd images he keeps seeing each time he faces Tony Stark? He should avoid the man, but curiosity keeps him coming back for more.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My adorable brain-mate Rabentochter proposed the idea of a super dark, chaotic evil Loki fic that would still end up being Frostiron. We put our heads together and this is the result. Don't worry, it's not all dark and gloomy, there's hopefully enough ridiculousness to make you laugh through your tears. If you particularly like any of the plot points, safe to say it was probably Rabentochter's idea. Seriously, they've got the clever ideas, I'm just the words that pull them all together, but I think the result is pretty darn great, hopefully you'll agree!

Loki sighed. It was good to finally be letting off some steam. It had been so long since he was free from the watchful gaze of his family, but now he could feel the tension practically drip off him. Loki took a moment to wipe the moisture from his face before he began his labors once again. It was tough and dirty, exerting himself like this, but the exercise was incredibly stress relieving. The information, too, was incredibly helpful, and if there was anything Loki liked, it was killing two birds with one stone. 

His current little bird, a SHIELD employee by the name of Grant Ward, was chirping piteously. These mortals were so very fragile. All it had taken was a few broken limbs, a gaping stomach wound and several days of sensory deprivation. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely the human’s weakness at fault; Loki was rather good at this. The key to torture was to vary the types of pain your subject experienced. Loki switched between heat, cold, sharp, heavy, loud, etc. It sounded simple but there were so many creative options within those categories to keep yourself from getting bored, your subject too, couldn’t have them falling asleep on you. Poor form that. 

Loki smacked the man, whose eyelids were currently drooping, getting more blood on his black and green leathers. Loki sighed, this time in frustration. He was generally not a fan of such a messy output, but these humans seemed to respond best to the sight of blood. The man was blinking frantically up at Loki, trying to steady himself. In between blinks, Loki’s hand shot out and grasped the man’s jaw in an iron grip. He squeezed until he could hear the bones creaking with tension, held them on just the edge of breaking, before he spoke again.

“Please don’t think that I am ungrateful, Mr. Ward.” Loki cooed at the man, his soft tone a sharp contrast to the grip he had on the man’s face. “You have given me so much useful information, how the Tesseract is being stored, the men who guard it, but there is one little niggling detail you have been hiding from me.”

The man’s eyes went even wider, which Loki hadn’t thought was possible. Ward fought Loki’s grip and Loki allowed it, letting go harshly, but it was only so the man could shake his head violently. 

“Oh, so you have told me the location of the base? I’ve just forgotten it, have I?” Loki asked mockingly. 

Ward moaned and his head dropped. “I told you, I don’t know where it is.”

Loki tsked. “And here I thought you respected me, Mr. Ward. Or at the very least respected what I can do to you. I just need this last bit of information and then we’ll be done; you’ll be free. You would like that, wouldn’t you?” 

Still staring at the ground, the agent nodded his head; his shoulders shook as if he was crying. Loki wanted to confirm that, so he gripped the man’s short brown hair to tip his head up. Sure enough, tears were running down the man’s cheeks. It was a beautiful thing, what fear could do. It was the most pure form of respect, so difficult to fake. Loki adored lies, to everyone but himself of course. 

Loki’s grip in the man’s hair softened and he ran a soothing hand down the man’s face and chest. When he got to the wound in the man’s torso, in just the right spot to bleed sufficiently but not make the man’s death too quick, he jabbed his hand inside. He twisted his fingers in the wound, shifting various organs for the sole purpose of making his victim howl. The agent screamed; Loki chuckled. He brought his hand back up to the man’s face, caressing it and smearing the man’s cheek with his own blood. It performed the additional task of getting most of the blood off of his fingers. 

“Shall we try this again?” Loki asked smoothly. “Or we could move on to something new? Maybe you don’t want me to leave just yet? Have you grown attached, Mr. Ward?”

“No, it’s…” The man coughed and took a deep breath. “I’m sure it’s outside of Albuquerque. New Mexico. I’ve never been there; I don’t have the exact location.”

“Oh, well done, Mr. Ward. Don’t worry, that is quite enough information. I’ll take it from here. You relax now.” Loki patted the man’s cheek and more drops of blood spattered, causing Loki to wrinkle his nose. 

The agent sagged in the chair he was bound to, head down, shoulders heaving with pained breaths. Loki smiled. He was probably just as relieved as the agent to be done with all this blood and messy business. Now he could move on to clean up. Loki walked behind the mortal, two quick gestures snapped the man’s neck and he slumped, no more pain, no more strained breathing. Most importantly, no more blood. Another man saved. It was just a drop in the bucket, but each sacrifice was another step in bringing the universe in balance. 

Loki hummed contentedly. Now he could go home and get this grime off him. Two weeks in and he already had the location of the Space Stone. He was definitely going to win this competition. It would be him at Thanos’s right hand when he ruled. Nothing was going to stop him now. 

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/

Loki was in his bathroom washing out the blood. It was a relief to be able to wipe off the blood and grime of the days labors. Loki had no issues with the personal touch; getting his hands dirty for a cause he believed in, but it made him uncomfortable to be anything less than put together. He didn’t really want to think about where that habit came from. 

Loki watched the red lighten in the water, swirl with the clear liquid as it went down the drain. In his relaxed state, the view was almost hypnotic and Loki found himself ready for a nap. It had been a long two weeks since Thanos announced the competition. The race to get the Infinity Stones was on, each of his children had been assigned one to retrieve. They were all expected to return with their Stone or not at all, but the first was to get the ultimate prize. Loki was determined to be that first.

Due to his unfortunate origins, despite the fact that he remembered little of Asgard, he had been quite young when Thanos had rescued him and that had been a hundred years or so ago, he was assigned to retrieve the Space Stone. That Stone was contained in a relic called the Tesseract and Odin had hidden it somewhere on Midgard. Fortunately, Loki had managed to remember that much, with the help of some research. 

Norway had been Loki’s first stop. The Asgardians had visited its people enough to be worshiped as Gods, so it made sense that they would hide a treasure at their God’s behest. He had been correct, but when he had finally tracked down the Tesseract’s hiding spot, it wasn’t there. Since then it had been nothing but irksome research until he finally uncovered the man responsible for taking the relic. A ridiculous creature who had attempted to use the Stone to turn himself into a higher being, but instead was made into a monster. The monster was defeated by a hero amusingly named Captain America, and then lost to the sea. 

It was dreary work, searching through mountains of information for the barest trace, for any mention of the Tesseract. Even with the beautifully complex and convenient Midgardian invention of the internet, it had taken quite a while. Finally, Loki had tracked down references to a man named Howard Stark, who led him to an organization called the SSR, now delightfully dubbed SHIELD. That’s where he had finally been able to indulge in some creative dialogue with Agent Ward. Loki sighed contentedly. A day or two to plan his encounter at the SHIELD base and Loki would have the Tesseract in hand. He could just picture holding up that glowing blue cube, presenting it to Thanos as proof of his undying fidelity. 

Loki heard just the barest scuff of a heel; it wasn’t enough time to react before a bolt of pain shot through him from his underarm. Loki did have time, however, to grab the wrist still holding on to the dagger that had entered his side. He lifted the blue figure easily and smirked as she kicked helplessly, dangling from his arm. 

“Really?” He asked the cyborg as he used his other hand to pull the small dagger out from under his arm. It was well made, with a handle that fit his slimmer fingers perfectly. He grunted his approval and sent it to his pocket dimension. 

“That’s mine!” Nebula complained when she saw the dagger disappear.

“I believe you just gave it to me. Don’t give away what you aren’t willing to lose.” Loki grinned fully now as he let the girl down. 

“You were too deep in your thoughts of glory and victory, I shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on you.” Nebula accused. 

“True,” Loki conceded. “Which is why I didn’t retaliate, little sister.”

Nebula scoffed, “You never call Gamora ‘little sister’.”

“I would rather not call Gamora ‘sister’ at all if I could help it.” Loki responded quickly, running a thumb down Nebula’s mechanical hand. 

Nebula brought out a protectiveness in Loki that he didn’t quite understand. She was the only of Thanos’s children to receive this particular punishment, the replacement of a body part with one of metal, in the twisted hope of improving her. Not that the rest of them hadn’t received punishments for their losses, they just tended to be less permanent, if no less painful. Loki understood the intended results, pain was a powerful motivator; it was a lesson he learned well. But when he saw how it changed his little sister, he couldn’t say he was completely satisfied with the method. It had also forged in him a fierce dislike of Gamora, as she had been the one to bring on these punishments more often than any other. It wasn’t entirely fair, Loki had never let any form of affection keep him from winning against Nebula himself, even causing her to lose the very hand he was holding. 

Loki shrugged his shoulder absently and let go of the offending appendage and chased away the damning thoughts as he moved into his bedroom. Loki reclined on a chair, his legs thrown over the arm casually. He pulled out his own dagger and twirled it in his fingers lazily, always needing something to do with his hands. Nebula collapsed on the bed for a moment before rolling to her stomach and sitting up on her elbows watching Loki.

“How goes the quest for the Reality Stone?” Loki asked her. 

“Very well,” Nebula said with a grin, the little liar. Loki would let her have this one, though, because the lie would have fooled any but him. “And you?”

“Tedious. Research, research, research.” Loki sighed. If Nebula knew just how close he was to getting the Tesseract she would gut him where he sat, or would attempt to at least. He didn’t blame her, in fact he would be rather disappointed if it were otherwise. There was no room for sentiment in their lives; a fact he frequently had to remind himself of, to his vast annoyance.

“You still have a bit of research on your collar.” Nebula pointed out. 

Loki looked down and saw that he indeed still had a few drops of blood, standing out darkly against the green of his leather. He frowned and wiped off the blots with his thumb before looking up at Nebula with a toothy smile.

“We all need our hobbies,” Loki supplied and Nebula laughed. She’d suspect that he was farther along in his search than he implied, but that was to be expected. “I came back to get cleaned up, what’s your excuse?”

“Tired,” Not one for a excess of words, Nebula grabbed one of the pillows from the bed and snuggled into it. Far be it for Loki to call one who had been termed ‘The Biggest Sadist in the Galaxy’ cute, but it was rather adorable. It did not inspire a warm feeling of fondness, however. 

“In case it has escaped your attention, that’s my bed; you have your own.” Loki pointed out. 

“Yours is comfier.” Nebula pouted.

“They are exactly the same.”

“Yours is still comfier,” Nebula argued. “Plus you rarely sleep anyways.”

“Oh, fine.” Loki ceded. Still twirling the dagger in his right hand, he conjured a book into his left. He could use a little down time himself.


	2. Chapter Two

Agent was just standing there in his bland, black suit, with his bland, blonde hair styled in a bland, short cut, giving him that enigmatic smirk that just rubbed Tony Stark the wrong way. They were in his tower, damn it. He shouldn’t have to take this in his own space. 

“Ok, so you know the Tesseract is in danger because one of your agents was taken?” Tony asked. 

“Yes,” Agent Coulson responded. Ok, now they were getting somewhere. 

“Did he work at the base where the Tesseract was being held?” 

“No” 

“Did he work on the Tesseract before it was relocated?” 

“No” 

“Did he consult remotely on the Tesseract project?” 

“No” 

“Ok, Agent. As fun as it is playing twenty questions with you, I have this nice shiny new tower to get set up, a CEO to seduce into being my girlfriend, and about a million other things I would much rather be doing. So how about we just cut to the chase and you tell me why you know the Tesseract is at risk?” 

“That’s classified,” was the response Tony really should have anticipated. He sighed. Honestly, if he had a repulsor in his hand right now he probably would have shot the agent. On like .01% power, nothing fatal, just to maybe see a different look on his face. 

“You know, people might actually be able to tell that you were joking if you had more than one facial expression.” Tony suggested. 

“So, I’ve been told.” Coulson responded serenely. 

“So you are joking?” Tony prodded. 

“No.” 

Tony threw up his hands in the air and walked a few steps away. “Can you at least tell me what you want with me? Or is that classified too? Are you just going to keep me in the dark and move me around like a puppet?” 

“We need someone who can safely store the Tesseract in an unanticipated location. The security on your new tower rivals that of SHIELD,” the agent supplied. 

“Number one, I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. Stop it, it’s creepy,” Tony interrupted. “Number two, how the hell are you aware that my tower security is that good?” 

Coulson just stared at him. Yeah, what the hell else did he expect? Tony waved his hand at Coulson in a gesture to go on. 

“We’re just looking for you to keep the Tesseract here, under guard. Our target will never suspect that we’ve entrusted it to a civilian.” 

Tony refrained from rubbing his hands with glee, but just barely. “So you are actually giving me access to the Tesseract? Here in my own lab with my own tech?” 

“We are giving you access to the case that will be holding the Tesseract. You won't be able to open said case.” Coulson corrected. 

Tony snorted internally. That’s what you think, give me five minutes, he thought. Outwardly, he pouted. “That’s just cruel, Agent. Dangling all the exciting sciency goodness in front of me and then pulling it back at the last second. Do you get pleasure from this sort of thing? Do you have a cat? I bet you have a cat.” 

The thing Tony probably hated most about Coulson, other than the fact that he actually didn’t hate Coulson at all, which was just weird, was that he couldn’t be bated. It didn’t matter how annoying, mind-numbing or insulting Tony was, the agent never gave him the satisfaction of reacting. 

“Agent Hill will be here shortly with the Tesseract. Store it safely and we’ll be in touch.” Coulson said. Apparently, for him, the information session was over. Yeah, right. 

“Umm…. you aren’t going to give me any information about this danger to the Tesseract?” Tony said. “How am I supposed to protect it if I don’t know who to protect it against?” 

“You know all you need to know. And if you store the Tesseract correctly then you’ll never need to meet him.” 

“Ha! It’s a him! Look at you, giving away classified information.” Blank stare, surprise, surprise. “You do realize I’m Iron Man, right? I can take him.” 

“This isn’t a task for Iron Man, it is a task for Tony Stark, consultant.” Without another word, Coulson walked into the elevator. Tony snorted. As if that had ever stopped him before. 

So Agent Hill showed up with a very fancy looking suitcase. Tony took the case, saluted her, then practically shoved her out the door so he could start in on his new project, cackling like the mad scientist he almost was. 

“Alrighty, JARVIS. It’s just you, me and the briefcase of doom here. What do you say, buddy? You gunna help me open this?” 

“Could I stop you,sir?” JARVIS asked. 

Tony snorted. “No chance in hell.” 

“Then I suppose I must assist you.” JARVIS said in that weary tone of his. Tony grinned. This was going to be awesome. 

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/ 

Two hours later, Tony was cussing up a storm. Getting SHIELD’s uber fancy briefcase open? Decidedly not awesome. He would go to his grave before openly admitting it, but he could not get the damn thing unlocked. It was some complicated mix of computer passcode and physical lock. He could hack the code in his sleep, a mostly restless, practically awake sleep, but still in his sleep. However, if he didn’t put the physical key into the suitcase within five seconds of the code being entered, the password reset and then he had to start again. His lockpicking set, which you know everyone has their hobbies, didn’t do jack on the physical lock either, especially not in the requisite five seconds. He suspected there was some kind of magnetic element to it, but hell if he could figure out how. 

“Most people would consider this a sign that they shouldn’t play with the glowy cube.” Tony muttered to himself. 

“But you aren’t most people, sir.” JARVIS responded. 

“Damn right I’m not.” Tony said with a grin. Ok, magnets. Magnets were definitely the key. 

“May I remind you, sir, that you have a date with Ms. Potts at six pm?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I remember. I have plenty of time.” Tony waved away the reminder as he dug through his cabinets for an appropriately sized magnet. 

“The time is currently 5:42, sir.” JARVIS prompted. 

“Wait, when did that happen?” Tony said in confusion. Wasn’t it just lunchtime? Shit, he’d skipped lunch again. 

“Less than a minute ago, sir.” JARVIS replied. 

“Ha! Very funny. I suppose I should probably get changed.” Tony said looking down at his grey sleeveless tee and jeans. 

“I would also suggest securing the briefcase before leaving the tower as well, sir.” 

“Oh, yeah. Good thinking, JARVIS. Please open up my super secret hidey hole.” 

“Do you really think that is the best place to store it, sir?” 

“Uh, that’s why it’s called the super secret hidey hole. No one knows about it, it’s lead lined so no chance of tracing the Tesseract’s energy. I don’t see the downside here.” 

“It’s just that the location has the tendency to be a bit...public, sir.” 

“JARVIS! Is that judgement I hear in your tone? For shame.” Tony said mock scathingly. The guy had a point. But it was the best place for now. Plus he didn’t plan on having any parties anytime soon so it should be fine. 

“My apologies, sir. I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

“Oh, and make sure to keep me updated on the SHIELD base in Albuquerque that I’m not supposed to know about. I’m pretty sure that’s where they had the Tesseract. I want to know if they have any security breaches.” 

“I believe Agent Coulson requested that you stay out of that portion of this assignment. He explicitly stated that they don’t need Iron Man.” 

“Yeah well, they don’t know what they need. I just want to provide some secondary support, that’s all. I’m sure it won't even come up.” 

Tony made it to the restaurant by 6:10, which really wasn’t that bad all things considering. He had to break a few more traffic laws than usual, but only a few. Tony tossed the keys to the valet and walked in the building. It looked like every other fine dining establishment in New York City, white tablecloths, understated decor in muted colors, candle centerpieces; Tony got the immediate urge to yawn. He couldn’t even tell what kind of restaurant it was, french, italian, art nouveau? Was that last one even a cuisine? But it was Pepper’s choice and one does not argue with the girl one is currently seducing. Especially when she’s also currently running your company. 

Pepper was already seated, but easy to spot with her sunset colored hair. She was wearing a gorgeous black dress that showed off her killer legs. She was currently staring at her phone, diligently typing out some email he was sure. When Tony greeted her she looked up from her phone and smiled. 

“Tony! You’re...” She paused to consider her watch, “close.” 

“I’ll take close. Close is actually really good for me. You should really take it as a huge compliment.” Tony started. Pepper silenced him with a kiss on the cheek. 

“I’ll take close too. I appreciate the effort.” Pepper said with a smirk that told Tony she was humoring him. Oh well, he could deal with being humored if it meant that this thing they had going finally progressed past the kissing stage. 

Truth was, Tony had no idea where to go from here. Obviously, he knew how to get women into bed, it was pretty much what he was known for. But he had never pursued an actual relationship before. He was in completely new territory and wasn’t at all sure how to press forward. Dates were good, he’d seen those in TV and movies. They weren’t all just one-shots that ended in his PA kicking them out of his place in the morning and never seeing them again. Wait, Pepper wasn’t his PA anymore. Ok, he really needed this to work because he had nobody to kick his dates out now. Well that was frightening. 

Tony tried to get out of his own head, as pointless of an endeavour as that tended to be, and focus on Pepper. She talked about her day, they went over a few things with the company. Tony told her about Agent and SHIELD, minus the trying to break into the briefcase part. It was nice. No, it was far better than nice, it was perfect. Pepper already knew him better than practically anyone. There wasn’t this facade to put up, this show to perform. See the amazing Tony Stark, genius and playboy extraordinaire as he performs rich kid courting rituals he hasn’t updated since the late eighties. No, he could be himself with Pepper; he could just exist. 

Of course, his alarm went off just after they’d finished their salads. He pulled up the screen to see that the SHIELD base security grid had indeed been infiltrated. Fuck. He looked up again and Pepper was staring at him in concern. He gave her a guilty smile. 

“So…I have to go.” 

“Go where? Tony, what’s going on?” Pepper asked, concerned. 

“It’s an Iron Man thing, SHIELD needs my help.” It wasn’t technically a lie. SHIELD definitely needed his help, they just didn’t want to need his help. 

“I thought you didn’t qualify for their whole Avengers Initiative thing?” Pepper said, whispering the words ‘Avengers Initiative’. 

“This is kind of a separate consulting thing. Not Avengers level, so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. But I still have to go, I’m sorry.” Tony stood up and gave her a peck on the cheek and went running out of the restaurant. 

“Is he already there, Jarvis?” Tony asked as he grabbed his keys and got into his car. 

“No, sir. I’ve just detected that he’s hacked security remotely, but I suspect he is on his way. You may not have time to get there.” 

“Dude, don’t count me out before we’ve even gotten started.”


	3. Chapter Three

Loki adored how reliant the Midgardians were on their precious technology. If you knew where to look, had a little time and some magic, you could get almost any information your heart desired. That being said, SHIELD was tougher to uncover than most. That’s why he had needed information straight from the Agent’s mouth as it were. However, now that he knew which of their bases was storing the Tesseract, it was far easier to work to compromise their security. 

Loki never cared for long, thought out plans. He was intelligent enough to know that he needed them to be successful, but impulsive enough to regret the time spent on them. His plan was simple. Hack into the base’s security. Create a distraction to pull the SHIELD employees away from the Tesseract, then steal it. A simple plan that should create the minimal amount of mess. 

It wasn’t that he had any particular desire to save any of the mortals with this series of events; Loki just wanted to ensure that his attention was not too fractured and prevent injury to himself. He knew that their guns couldn’t hurt him, but Loki suspected that with SHIELD’s background and specialties they had far greater weapons than just those. When HYDRA had the Tesseract, they had used their studies of its energy to make weapons, Loki had no illusions that SHIELD wouldn’t do the same. That form of weapon could potentially hurt him. So less people it was. He could have all the fun he wished after he was in possession of the Infinity Stone. 

The leaps Loki had to take to get from the ship to Midgard were frustrating, but necessary. If he had the Space Stone, he could open up a direct path, of course, but for now he had to teleport several separate times, stopping between them to recharge and the process took time. But soon enough, he was blinking in the harsh white light of a small, grey room. There were shelves on all sides stacked with boxes of various sizes, a supply closet. One that was close to the largest room in the base, which should hold the equipment they’ve been using to experiment with the Tesseract and therefore, the Tesseract itself. 

Loki waved a hand and in a flash of green magic the fire alarm started throughout the base. Of course, he could have just set the alarm off, he didn’t have to actually start a fire on the other side of the building, but he was nothing if not thorough. He knew that not everyone would abandon the Tesseract, in fact they may try to bring it out of the complex, but it was a necessary risk. They wouldn’t be able to remove it before he got there. 

Loki walked out of the closet and confidently into the room where SHIELD was keeping the Space Stone. It was a vast complex, stories high and just as wide. It was full of intricate technology that Loki had no knowledge of, or interest in obtaining such. Unfortunately, it was also completely empty, with all the lights dimmed as well. All except for one man in a dark suit, waiting patiently in the center. Loki’s stomach fell. They had known he was coming. How could they possibly have known? Still, he strode forward as if this was all part of the plan. 

“Good evening. I’m Agent Coulson of SHIELD. Who, may I ask, are you?” The man said with a slight smile on his face. The tone of his voice was completely calm. It was as if men in leather armour and gold-horned helms wielding magic broke into his base every day. Loki was begrudgingly impressed. Polite too, he always appreciated polite. 

“Good evening, Agent Coulson. You may call me Loki. I’m here for the Tesseract. If you would be so kind as to hand it over, I will be on my way.” Loki said with a nod. He could be polite too. Up until he had to wring the location out of the man’s bleeding corpse when he refused such information. 

“I’m afraid that I can’t do that, Mr. Loki. You see, we suspected someone was looking for it, so we thought it wise to remove such a powerful artifact from the situation. I’m sure you’ll understand. We don’t intend on giving the Tesseract up to anyone, so maybe it would be best if you just left.” Coulson responded, his slight smile not wavering in the slightest. 

“It’s just Loki, actually, singular name only and I’m afraid I can’t do that, Agent Coulson. You see I’ve been tasked with getting that particular item and failure is not an option.” There was only the slightest tightening of the agent’s eyes when Loki wrapped his arms in magic so that he couldn’t move. Loki grinned as he walked forward. This man would be a challenge; he wouldn’t break easily. Loki was going to have to put all his considerable skill into the process. He was rather looking forward to it. 

Intent on his prey, Loki had no idea they weren’t alone until he was flying back from a blue energy beam. Loki’s head knocked into the hard concrete of the ground and his vision went dark. 

Loki was in a room like none he’d ever seen. It seemed to go on forever in a sea of gold walls. In front of him was a staircase up to a golden throne, full of far more pomp than Thanos’s stone one, gold jutted up on either side almost like horns. The throne was empty, but he was not alone in this room. A figure to his right grabbed his shoulder. 

Loki looked over and saw a child of perhaps ten. He had tanned skin, golden hair and big blue eyes. He was dressed in a red tunic and holding a wooden sword. He was also grinning widely. 

“Come on, Loki. It doesn’t count if you don’t actually sit on the throne.” 

The child walked up several steps before Loki heard himself speak, his own voice childlike but still recognizable. 

“I don’t know, Brother. Surely even you wouldn’t be so bold as to sit in Father’s chair?” He could hear the calculation in that voice, reassuring him that it certainly was his. The child didn’t notice the artifice, though. He turned back towards Loki, worry replacing the confident grin on his features. It was then that Loki really took note of the warm feeling permeating his being. It was more than humor, more than fondness, more than contentment. He didn’t have words for it, but it was disconcerting to say the least. 

“See, Agent? Knew you would need Iron Man.” A metallic sounding voice brought Loki out of, well, whatever that had been. 

His attacker appeared to be some sort of robot, a very ostentatious robot in red and gold tones. The voice was mechanical but imbued with character, personality even. A much higher technological feat than Loki was aware existed on Midgard. The metal man landed from where he had been hovering over him. 

“You are a man of iron?” Loki asked, his voice roughened from the fall. 

“Gold titanium alloy actually, but you know, superhero names.” Most of those words didn’t make much sense, but Loki was sensing that was mostly a yes. 

“What did you do to me?” Loki asked, wondering how this robotic man could have possibly forced such sights and sensations onto him. 

“It’s called a repulsor. I just knocked you out for a sec; that can’t possibly be that new for you if you are in the habit of taking people’s stuff.” Iron Man responded, either being intentionally obtuse or he truly did not know what had just happened to Loki. 

Either way, Loki was not spending any more time on the floor. He got up and in the blink of an eye, he had advanced on the machine, driving his fist into the stomach. There was grunt from the metal man that sounded very living indeed, but Loki was more concerned with the fact that his punch had left only a small dent in the armor. There was no doubt a magical solution, but what was the point? The Tesseract wasn’t here. His only source of information had a powerful protector. It was time to cut his losses and regroup, especially before that repulsor could cause him any more discomfort. So before the robot could attack again, Loki had teleported away. 

 

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/ 

 

“Who, or maybe what, in the hell was that?” Tony asked Coulson once the guy had literally disappeared into thin air in a flash of green and gold. It was obviously magic, except for the fact that magic was obviously bullshit. 

“Classified,” Agent responded and Tony groaned. 

“Hey, you owe me. If this beauty of a dent in my armor is any indication, that guy would have leveled you.” 

“I believe I informed Iron Man to stay out of this,” Coulson said instead of the ‘Thank You’ Tony so richly deserved. 

“Uh, see previous leveling. You’d be toast, hence the owing.” Tony responded. 

Coulson sighed. “We have no idea. This is the first we’ve seen of him physically. We knew that he was brilliant, we still don’t know how he hacked into our system. We knew he was dangerous with how he captured and killed Agent Ward. However, this was the first sign of otherworldly strength and skills. He had me bound in what felt like invisible rope.” 

“Yeah, the disappearing in a cloud of sparkles was pretty out there too. You guys haven’t seen anything like this?” 

Coulson shook his head, but Tony sensed that the agent knew more than he was letting on. Then again, the Agent always knew more than he was letting on, so that really wasn’t telling in itself. 

“Mr. Stark,” Coulson started. 

“Yeah, yeah, go home. Protect the Tesseract. I’m out of here.” 

It was late when Tony finally made it back to the tower. He could have just gone to his Malibu home given it was hours closer, but he didn’t want to leave the unfinished project for too long. Plus Pepper was in New York so he’d have a better chance seeing her again sooner rather than later. Tony helped himself to a drink and sat down staring out at the city skyline. He wasn’t quite ready for bed yet, details and theories and plans were swimming in his head. 

“What kind of data do we have on Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome?” Tony asked JARVIS. 

“Is ‘Tall, Dark and Handsome,’ the official codename we’re going with, sir?” JARVIS asked, amusement apparent in his voice. 

The guy was the very definition of the term, but “Nah, go with his actual name, Loki. Wouldn’t want SHIELD to get into my files and think I’m crushing on the supervillain.” 

“Of course not, sir. Currently, we have Loki’s physical attributes, he appears to be human in everything but weight and strength.” 

“Weight? Sure, he was skinny but not abnormally so.” 

“Loki appears to be about twice your weight, sir, despite his thinner frame.” JARVIS responded. Twice? Seriously? That was interesting. It definitely wasn’t fat so something about the man’s bones, maybe even muscle, must be denser than a human’s. That would make sense for maintaining that level of strength. 

“What about the magic stuff?” Tony asked. 

“The available data from the SHIELD base is not sufficient to analyze the energy signatures. Loki appeared instantly in a store-room just outside of the Tesseract testing chamber and disappeared just as quickly. No other data is known.” JARVIS sounded annoyed to not have access to higher quality scanners to give Tony more accurate information. Tony was right there with him. 

“Loki, Loki, Loki,” Tony repeated, playing with the syllables on his tongue. “Why does that name sound kinda familiar?” 

“The first appearance of the word ‘Loki’ comes from Norse Paganism in the Middle Ages. It was first documented in the Poetic Edda in the 13th century. In these writings Loki is the God of Mischief, Lies, Chaos and Fire. He was a shapeshifter and a trickster and usually appears as the antagonist in many of the myths.” 

“Ok, so this guy’s probably from Scandinavia, though his accent was far more British. He can do this awesome magic stuff so he calls himself Loki. That would make sense. But then I guess that doesn’t explain the super strength and density, though I guess that could be magic too.” Magic was annoying that way. Tony felt like magic was too much of an out, you didn’t need to understand or explain something if you could just call it magic and move on. 

“Sir, it appears that Agent Coulson has filed his report with SHIELD. Would you like to read it?” 

“Hell, yes, buddy! You rock. Send it to my screen.” Tony congratulated before turning his attention the the official, super classified report that JARVIS had collected for him. 

Tony wasn’t one to be surprised by much, but his jaw was hanging open by the end of the report. SHIELD thought this Loki guy was THE Loki. As in, they thought he was the actual God of Mischief that the ancient Norse worshipped. How the hell was that possible? Reading on, Tony had to request a separate SHIELD file referenced in this report. One from a little over a year ago in Puerto Antigua, New Mexico. 

Tony’s jaw definitely didn’t close. It looked like Earth had already been visited by a God before. Thor, the God of Thunder, who just happened to be Loki’s brother, had done battle with a giant robot and ooo, video! Tony watched the giant robot absolutely devastate the small town until Thor unleashed his godly powers and took it out. All signs pointed to Thor being a friendly, but then why was his brother down here causing trouble? God of Mischief may have been answer enough, but Tony suspected there was more to it. He had said failure was not an option. And this was a lot of work, a lot of very specific purpose for just trying to cause chaos. Why did he need the Tesseract?


	4. Chapter Four

Loki eyed the man sitting in front of him warily. There was a coldness, a reserve to the man that appealed to Loki. Grey eyes regarded him back without a hint of concern. Loki suppressed a smirk. The man’s credentials were perfection; his talents were exactly what he needed. This was going to work out perfectly, he just needed to confirm one more thing. 

“Well Mr….” Loki trailed off as if he had forgotten the man’s name. 

“Barton. But you can call me Clint.” The man finished for him casually. 

Loki nodded as if he hadn’t received any more information than the confirmation of a name that he had barely remembered. He wasn’t sure why, but he was pleased that the man had given him his real name. Surprising, considering the man’s career. He had spent the last fifteen years as a mercenary for hire, his specialty being in archery. It was an impressively long time for these humans, he must have started out quite young. 

Those who make their living in the shadows and outside of the law rarely go by their true name. Clint’s impressive amounts of experience appeared to be perfect for Loki’s needs. It had been precisely what Loki had been hoping for. It made Loki leery, felt almost too good to be true, but he could detect no lies in the man. There was also the fact that, loathe as Loki was to admit it even to himself, he could use the help in tracking down the Tesseract, the quicker the better. 

The damn relic seemed to have disappeared off the face of this dull planet. SHIELD had not been able to keep him from their data, but there wasn’t a trace of information in their files about the Tesseract anymore. They had obviously caught on to his information gathering and were now guarding the location jealously. It was maddening; Loki had been so close, he could practically feel the power in his hand, just to have it all ripped away. But Loki hoped that this man would be just what he needed. 

“Well, Clint. I think you are exactly the kind of man that I need. So my only question to you is what do you need?” Loki hated the thought of catering to a pathetic mortal, but he needed the man to trust him. That required a little give and take. 

“What do you mean?” Barton asked suspiciously. 

Loki sighed. “Tools? Furniture? Funds? Provisions? What do you require to accomplish your mission?” 

“I’m a pretty simple guy, sir. I just need a notebook, pen, computer and something to put it all on. A coffeemaker would be awesome too, if you got it. Leaving all the time to grab coffee cuts into the workday.” 

“Coffeemaker?” Loki had no idea what this was a reference to. 

Barton’s eyes practically bugged out of his skull. “You know, like a machine to make coffee. Please tell me you’ve had coffee before? You couldn’t possibly be that deprived. What are you? An alien?” Barton’s mouth snapped shut as he realized he had said too much. Loki was begrudgingly impressed at the man’s leap of logic. 

Loki chuckled, ran a pointed look down his odd garb and looked up at Barton before conjuring a dagger into his hand in a bright flash of green magic. “What do you think?” 

“Uh, alien is totally cool with me, man. Hey, who am I to judge? You’re the guy with the money and the plan.” Clint laughed nervously and held his hands up casually, but still with palms open in a gesture of surrender. Loki smiled back and vanished the dagger again. He hadn’t really been threatening the man, it was just a little demonstration of his magic. 

Loki conjured his new employee’s requested items, sans coffeemaker and the eyes stayed wide. Barton recovered quickly though, booting up the computer and immediately searching for said coffee-making device. Apparently this was important enough to him that magic was not going to distract him. Loki studied the information given before nodding and conjuring a version of what he saw, but in green. Brown liquid flowed into the pouring receptacle as soon as it appeared, steaming with a fragrance that Loki had to admit was very pleasing. 

When the pot was full, the liquid stopped, Clint pulled it from the machine and drank straight from the pot despite the fact that it was so hot that it was steaming. 

“Wow, that’s really good.” He commented with a moan that seemed completely disproportionate to the activity. 

“Is it not generally? Why would you drink it otherwise?” Loki asked, amused by the scene. 

“Because I need it to survive.” Clint said automatically, but when he viewed Loki’s surprised look he clarified. “Well not really. Well possibly. I’m kind of addicted. I don’t even count the number of cups I go through a day anymore because it would just make me sad. But coffee, especially in workplace situations, isn’t always that good. Cheap, bitter, burnt more often than not.” 

Barton took a few more long gulps before replacing the pot in the machine. The machine turned on and started filling the pot again. 

“Huh, that’s cool. So where’s the coffee supplies?” At Loki’s blank look he smiled a bit, “You know, the coffee grounds, the water, the stuff you need to keep this machine pumping out my drug o’ choice?” 

“It’s magic, Barton. No supplies necessary. As long as the pot is in the device it will provide fresh coffee.” Loki explained. 

“Like indefinitely?” 

“Infinitely,” Loki confirmed. 

“I love you,” Barton replied automatically. Loki had no time to guard his shock at the words. Love? He was getting proclamations of love from a mortal he barely knew? Over a beverage? His surprise rendered him momentarily mute, not a common occurrence. Barton quickly identified the issue. 

“I’m really going to have to pay attention to the alien taking what I say literally huh? It’s just a saying. Like, a hyperbole? I don’t actually love you, dude. I barely even know you. It’s just, wow this is weird. Uh, how about thank you?” 

Yes, mortals were very weird. At least they were increasingly amusing. “You’re welcome, Mr. Barton.” 

Supplies secured, Loki set Barton to his work locating the Tesseract. So, Loki turned his attention to the mystery of the Iron Man and what power it had. 

Loki was shocked to discover that the superhero was not truly a man of metal but a suit of armor covering a regular man, though regular was a stretch. The man was Anthony Stark, son of the very same Howard Stark that had recovered the Tesseract. This was significant; Loki didn’t believe in coincidences. The man was working with SHIELD; he had arrived shortly after Loki had broken into the base, there had to be a link between him and the Space Stone. 

Loki delved into the public knowledge about Stark. He found the tales of his womanizing and philanthropy to be completely uninteresting, yet helpful. The story of his capture by his enemies, now that was intriguing. Before such, he had the dubious honor of the nickname, Merchant of Death; now that was a man Loki could work with. Since his capture and return from enemy forces, however, the man had been set on a path of atonement and peacemaking. It was laughably naive, but how deep was this new path carved into the man’s soul? Someone who had grown up for so long to be selfish and warmongering couldn’t possibly change his very nature overnight. That darkness must still be there, under the surface, waiting to be brought back to the forefront. How much could Loki do with such a man just waiting to be corrupted? 

Loki turned his attention from the public information about Stark to SHIELD's files. Loki was more than a little surprised to find himself completely blocked. There was no way that pathetic organization could have found a way to keep him from their information so quickly. Sure enough, Loki was able to access Coulson’s file as he had previously. There was something specific to Stark’s information that was keeping him out. 

Using his developing knowledge of the background code that made up the entity known as the Internet, Loki used his magic to trace that which was blocking him. He should not have been surprised when it led him to a computer hub stored at the new Stark Tower. Loki had read that Stark was a genius; he had designed a mechanical marvel of a suit of armor, of course he would be far better prepared to thwart Loki’s hacking efforts than SHIELD. 

The server the block came from was designated JARVIS. A little research, both public and otherwise, and Loki learned that JARVIS was an artificial intelligence system Stark had designed to be his valet, his helpmeet in all things personal and professional. Here was the real value Stark provided. Loki could corrupt computer code far easier than a mortal’s heart. The AI who could keep him out of SHIELD's files, could just as easily break into wherever they kept the Stone’s location. All he needed to do was get JARVIS and he would have the Tesseract. Corrupting Stark could be Plan B. 

Loki called over Barton to see what he knew about the man and his AI. The agent practically bounced over to him and Loki frowned at the mug in the man’s hands. 

“How many of those have you had?” Loki asked. 

“Dunno. Told you. Don’t count.” Barton responded. He seemed lucid and certainly had a lot of energy. Still... 

“Should I be concerned that this will be a problem?” Loki asked. 

“Nah, gives me energy. I practically live on the stuff. What are we looking at?” The agent responded. Loki looked at him dubiously for another moment before shrugging. If it became a problem he could always kill the man. He had no doubt that he could find a suitable replacement. 

“Do you know this man?” Loki asked, gesturing to a picture of Stark, all dressed up in a suit for the cover of some magazine. 

Barton gave Loki an odd, questioning look. “Seriously? Who doesn’t?” 

Loki gave him an unamused, unimpressed look. 

“I keep forgetting, alien. Dude, everyone knows who Tony Stark is. He’s one of the richest guys in the world, owns that big company, built that huge, ugly tower in New York and he’s Iron Man. Where do you come from anyways?” 

The question took Loki by surprise. He had pegged Barton as not being one for unnecessary questions. Then again, a man’s or alien’s, he supposed, origins were generally considered to be an important determinant in who the man was. Loki was fortunate that wasn’t entirely true or he would be either pathetic or arrogant to the point of believing himself a God, but he could see why the agent was curious. 

“Pluto,” Loki responded with a shrug as if that was a perfectly normal answer. He was good enough that he didn’t snicker as Clint’s eyes got wide, but he wanted to. 

“There are aliens on Pluto? How did we not know this? Are you hidden in some way?” Clint asked, trying to collect all the relevant information on a fictional alien race. 

“Just me actually. Since Pluto revolves around the sun every 248 years, scientists don’t know as much about the dwarf planet as they would like to think.” The internet was truly a marvelous innovation and Loki had the good fortune to remember everything he read perfectly. It sold his story quite nicely. 

“How was it just you? That sounds massively depressing. I enjoy being alone most times, but always?” Barton mused, mostly to himself. 

Loki wasn’t sure how to respond. He had merely been trying to save himself the effort of developing an entire society that lived on Pluto. Sympathy was something he hadn’t anticipated. But it could be quite valuable. 

“When it’s all you truly know?” Loki trailed off as if reflecting. “I suppose I must have been abandoned. But I got off that rock as soon as possible and things have been much more interesting since.” 

Loki finished there, avoided eye contact with the man as if the story made him uncomfortable. It did, to an extent, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. 

Barton took the hint and changed the subject back to the task at hand. “So what does Stark have to do with the search for the Tesseract?” 

“Very little, actually.” Loki said, with an eye towards Barton’s reaction to the potential lie. There was none. “What I actually want is the artificial intelligence system he designed, JARVIS. I believe with its connectivity and programming it could help us nail down the artifact’s location much more quickly.” 

Barton caught on quickly. “Ok, so we gotta get to the server the AI is stored on. My guess would be that it’s in Stark’s tower. I know he moved most of his tech in there. It’s not going to be easy to get into, the guy’s a genius so he has to have great security. There will be alarms, the elevators will likely be at the very least coded by key card...” 

“Getting in isn’t a problem. I can teleport.” Loki responded. Clint grinned at that. “However, I would rather find a time that Stark is not around. It would be better if I didn’t have to face Iron Man.” And his odd, disorienting mind attacks. Loki still hadn’t found anything to explain that yet. 

“Easy enough. We can just find a time when he’s in a meeting or maybe out on a date or something. I’ll get to looking and we’ll have a plan of attack soon.”


	5. Chapter Five

Tony didn’t like cancelling his make-up date with Pepper, but he supposed that cancelling a date was far better than either not showing up or having to leave early again because a crazy alien showed up at his house to steal JARVIS. Still this was the second time the guy was cutting into his love life and Tony was not amused. 

Still, his first reaction when Coulson had called and told Tony they had intel that Loki would be coming for Jarvis was to laugh. Tony had pulled out all the stops on the security for the tower, and specifically for JARVIS. Fort Knox weeped in jealous despair at his security. Then Tony remembered the teleporting; the magic that they had no parameters on, perhaps it was best to be cautious. So, Tony had told Pepper to keep their reservation, have a little fun without him since he couldn’t be there. She hadn’t been happy, but she had understood. One of the many reasons why Tony definitely didn’t deserve her. 

So now Tony was sitting on his couch, with a glass of scotch watching the video feed to JARVIS’s server room. Waiting to see what the interesting new alien would do. The alien was taking his sweet-ass time, was what he was doing. Tony was through his first glass and contemplating just how terrible of an idea a second glass would be when he finally saw the blip on the screen. 

“Sir, an intruder identified as Loki has entered the main server room.” JARVIS informed him promptly. 

“Yeah, got that buddy. Can’t you see that I am sitting here watching the monitor?” 

“Of course, sir. Forgive my entertaining the possibility that you may have gotten distracted. I’m sure that would never happen.” JARVIS responded. Tony chuckled but didn’t respond as he watched the green and black leather clad figure. 

The alien walked absolutely silently towards the dumb terminal connected to JARVIS’s server. Before touching the keyboard, however, Loki did a quick scan around the room. Tony wondered how Loki was going to react when he realized that he was being watched. The alien easily spotted the camera, it wasn’t exactly subtle. There was no irritation or concern, instead he flashed the camera a wide grin and winked. Arrogant prick, Tony thought. He didn’t say it out loud, though, he had a feeling that JARVIS wouldn’t be able to resist the irony. 

Obviously, the god had no concern about Tony knowing he was stealing JARVIS. Likely, he assumed Tony was away and would be watching this footage after the trickster had stolen away with his prize. The confidence wasn’t completely unfounded, Tony wasn’t sure there would be anything he could have done if he found out after the fact. 

Little did Loki know that Tony had locked down that dumb terminal. Loki would be able to enter commands. In fact, he would be able to do everything he thought he should be able to do, but any information he obtained from it would come out as gibberish. It was overly complicated but it served two important functions: 1, it would make Loki think that he had accomplished his goal therefore keeping him from resorting to a Plan B immediately that Tony hadn’t planned for. 2, it would give Tony some insight into how technologically savvy the alien truly was. 

The second function was demonstrated quite quickly as Loki sat down in the chair. Instead of going for the keyboard, Loki turned on the monitor and zapped it with some sparkly green magic. Code started loading on to the screen just as if Loki had pulled up the command prompt. The sorcerer may not have been typing but he was sending commands just fine, trails of magic continuously flowing from his fingers into the monitor. That was cheating! How was Tony supposed to combat someone who could just magic their way in? Where was the finesse, the play of mind against mind? But Tony could see from the way Loki manipulated the data that he did understand it, to an extent. Altogether it was an intriguing display and Tony was surprised to find that he was impressed. 

His begrudging respect faded to horror when he realized that Loki’s magic was bypassing his lock. The alien had actually managed to get into JARVIS’s base code. Even worse, he wasn’t using any sort of file transfer that Tony could combat. No,the strings of digits that made up who JARVIS was started actually floating out of the monitor. Nope, Tony had to stop this and fast. He went with the Mark V, handily nearby and the fastest to put on of any of the suits due to its mobility. It wasn’t the strongest or most tricked-out but right now faster was better. He really needed to get the kinks figured out in the Mark VII. 

The armor was far quicker than any elevator, so Tony launched himself outside and down to the ground floor. Unfortunately, he had to take an elevator to get into the sub-basements. The idea suddenly occurred to him to have an empty elevator shaft that he could fly down with doors to each floor. Mental note accomplished, Tony rushed into the server room to stop Loki before he had JARVIS. 

“Hey Reindeer Games,” Tony called and Loki jumped minutely, his magic sparking out and the green numerals hovering in the air dissipating. “Don’t take my stuff.” 

Loki passed off his surprise marvelously or maybe he truly had known that Tony had been watching. Either way he leaned back and swirled in the roller chair to smirk mockingly at Tony. 

“Reindeer Games?” 

“Yeah, you got the whole horny thing going on there,” Tony said gesturing to the bright gold helm. Loki stared at him with an eyebrow raised for a few moments before Tony’s brain caught up with his mouth and he realized the alternate connotations of what he just said. Classy, Tony. 

“Ignoring the obvious double entendre, they look nothing like reindeer antlers. If anything they resemble ibex horns.” 

Cool, calm and collected, but the alien wasn’t like Coulson who just ignored Tony’s intentionally awkward and aggressive banter, no Loki took it and came back swinging. That was when Tony realized he was admiring the guy again, he really needed to stop that. 

“Dude, how do you even know what an ibex is? You’re from space. I’m from here and I don’t even know what that is.” 

“I am from Niflheim, actually. Hel to be specific.” At that Loki rose from the chair and took a few leisurely, stalking steps towards Tony. “I believe you have a concept here on Midgard called the reaper? He who takes the souls of the dead? You can consider me such. I take the souls of the unworthy, those cowards who do not die in battle and are therefore not destined to join the golden halls of Valhalla. So tell me, Mr. Stark, do you fear death? Do you fear the dark and lonely fog-filled wastes of Hel? Do you feel that cold shiver down your spine that tells you that death has come for you?” Loki smiled, a wide smile with far too many teeth. It was mildly terrifying. 

Tony had to fight not to take a step back. Instead, he did what he does best, he steered into the skid. Tony laughed. Not a chuckle, not a guffaw, a big belly laugh that trailed off. So yeah, Loki looked like he was one second away from ripping Iron Man’s head off and fulfilling his whole death thing, but it was so worth it. 

“It’s a good bit. Seriously, if I didn’t know any better I might even believe you. But, I do know better. See, that kind of lie only works when you aren’t famous. When any Joe Schmo with a computer can’t just Google you. And I’m not just anyone, I had Jarvis look you up. We’ve got so many stories about Loki, the God of Mischief and other stuff. I’m figuring it’s the mischief you’re after here, right? Got away from the big brother, spreading a few lies, causing a bit of chaos, having some fun with us puny humans, is that it?” Good news was that Loki was no longer looking at him like he was seconds away from killing him. The bad news was that the guy looked really cute with that little furrow of confusion in his brow. 

“Those Asgardians who convinced you pathetic mortals that they were to be worshipped are not gods. My father is far more powerful, more worthy, than any of them.” Loki said with a sneer, confidence coming back to his expression again. 

“But you’re Asgardian? Your dad’s Asgardian, yeah? Odin? Big daddy god?” Tony could have sworn that was what he had read. 

“He is not my father!” Loki yelled vehemently, startling Tony with his passion. Ok, dad was obviously a sore spot. No surprise that Tony could recognize daddy issues from a mile away. “I may share Odin’s blood, but the father who adopted me, who saved me, is the one who has earned that title. What’s more, he is far more powerful than Odin could ever hope to be.” 

There was a fire in those blue eyes when he spoke of his father, a flame that spoke of mania, of devotion bordering on worship. Tony filed that information away to delve into later. 

“Well this is obviously going nowhere.” Tony deadpanned before he blasted Loki in the face. 

Ok, sure, it was less than polite, but the guy was obviously going to start his spiel on how Tony should join his daddy’s cult, and Tony wasn’t even willing to do that for his own father. Then again, considering who his father was, that wasn’t saying much. The blast toppled the god over in the desk chair and he hit his head on the floor with a sharp crack. Tony winced at the sound; his brow stayed furrowed as the alien didn’t immediately get up again. Ok, for all his rumored high bone density and apparent strength, it was sure easy to knock the guy out. 

Tony had about a minute to contemplate how he wanted to rub this in SHIELD’s face when Loki started twitching and murmuring. 

“Uh, JARVIS? Can you verify if I broke the god?” That would be something, wouldn’t it? 

“Actually, sir, he appears to be dreaming.” 

“I’m not so good with the medicine and fortunately, I haven’t been knocked out much, is that normal?” 

“It isn’t for humans, and while I suspect that would be the same for Loki as his brain waves appear remarkably similar, I cannot be sure.” Well, that was interesting. Tony recalled how Loki had responded to being knocked out the last time. He had been thrown off his game. There was definitely something tricky going on. Tony jumped as a crack of thunder startled him from his thoughts. Where the hell had a storm come from? 

Still, Tony wasn’t going to invite the suits into his server room. Using his mechanically increased strength, damn this guy really was heavy, Tony dragged his captive alien into the elevator. He tapped his foot impatiently to drown out the musaak in the car. Yeah, he was going to have to do something about that. Couldn’t have people’s early impressions of his tower be colored by this crap. 

Tony dragged the trickster out of the elevator and unceremoniously dropped him onto the floor. Raising his faceplate Tony walked over the bar to get himself another drink. SHIELD could wait, he’d definitely earned this. Tony startled as another burst of thunder rattled the windows of the building. There was a crack of lightning right by the tower followed by an even louder peal of thunder. The storm was obviously right on top of him. Tony cast a wary look to see if the noise woke up his prisoner. The god was still moving a bit and possibly moaning, but still appeared to be dead to the world. Brilliant.


	6. Chapter Six

Thor knew the rolling thunder, flashes of lightning and the pouring rain would give him away. Loki never failed to recognize when a storm was of Thor’s making as opposed to something natural. In those early, chaotic years when Thor had been fighting for dominance over his power, Loki had been the one to help him focus. His brother had used his years of practice with his magic to teach Thor control, to work with his power rather than fight against it. 

It had been one of the increasingly common situations throughout their centuries where Thor had been embarrassed to consider that Loki felt more like the elder brother than Thor did. It had caused the thunder god to pull away from his little brother, to no longer seek out his advice, to spend more time with the people who actually looked up to him rather than judged him. He hadn’t stopped spending time with Loki, there were still lessons and sparring and adventures. No, the distance had been more emotional than physical. 

“Know your place, Brother.” Those thoughtless words, dismissing Loki, as his brother merely tried to keep them from killing and being killed, ate at Thor. He couldn’t help but feel that the entire situation, ignoring his brother’s advice, dismissing him at every turn had been at least part of what led Loki to his power hungry madness. But there hadn’t been time to confront those feelings. 

Thor had fought with this brother to save Jotunheim and its people, the very people he himself had been punished for killing. Thor may not have been the scholar Loki was but the irony was not lost on him. Then the bifrost was destroyed, the fight was over, but there was no time for discussion. Loki was just...gone. 

Thor had re-lived that moment so many times in his head, Loki’s lost, despairing eyes in that blank face. Thor punished himself with replaying it over and over, wondering what he could have done differently. He knew, though, that the time for acting differently had been long before that day. Loki had lashed out not just because he was a Frost Giant, but because he had been unheard and disregarded. Thor hadn’t listened because Loki had been too wise and too clever for him. 

And too deceitful, too manipulative, Thor’s brain filled in for him unwillingly. With his guilt and his grief, Thor was finding it harder and harder to remember Loki’s faults. But, he knew he couldn’t completely disregard them anymore. There was a reason Thor never entirely trusted everything Loki said. There was a reason why he had never truly fit in with the Warriors Three and Lady Sif. Loki had brought Laufey, the king of the Frost Giants into Asgard. Thor was certain he had let the Frost Giants in to ruin his coronation; and that had been before he had learned of his origins. 

Thor had a lot of questions, questions that only Loki had the answers to. It had been too much to hope that he would have this opportunity to ask them. It had been more than a year since Loki’s fall. His family hadn’t dared to believe that Loki could survive the void. Heimdall certainly hadn’t been able to see him. So they had mourned, they had concentrated on remembering the good in Loki and now… 

Suddenly Heimdall could see him again, in Midgard of all places. The void had done Thor’s brother no favors, it had seemed. Loki was going after the Tesseract Odin had hid on Earth; they couldn’t fathom why. Worse was that he was violent, even murderous, in his efforts to find it. Thor had to stop this now. He had to find Loki and somehow bring him to his senses again. This was his second chance, he could get his brother back. He could alleviate this bone-deep ache of loss. Nothing would stand in his way. 

Thor landed on an outcropping of the tall building where Heimdall had last seen his brother. Thor’s blonde hair whipped in his face, heavy with water from the rain. His red cape thrashed behind him and as another crack of lightning lit the sky, he knew he made for a fearsome picture. He could see that reflected in the windows as well as the startled look of the man staring at him from inside. 

The mortal was wearing an intricate suit of armor that left no speck of the man’s body bare except for his face. Thor stalked inside and looked for his brother. It didn’t take him long to find him down on the ground, his face dark, his eyes tightly shut. 

“What did you do to my brother?” Thor bellowed, running to Loki’s side. 

“I caught your brother trying to steal something very precious to me.” The man said without a hint of concern for what Thor could do, the arrogant fool. “But I have no idea what this is. They don’t really look like nice dreams do they?” 

Dreaming? Thor knelt on the ground and regarded Loki thoughtfully. Yes, he supposed he could recall what Loki had looked like when he had bad dreams in their childhood. He even looked younger than Thor remembered, but that was likely because he looked afraid rather than Loki’s default expression of spite. 

“You haven’t tried to wake him?” Thor asked the Midgardian. 

“Nope, this was kind of beneficial since he’s super strong and I wasn’t all that interested in wrestling him until Big Brother took him away.” 

“How did you know I was coming?” Thor asked, looking up at the man again, who had approached where he kneeled by his brother. 

“Ha, yeah, my mistake. Not you big brother, like the government big brother. It’s an expression. See he keeps trying to take something they really want to keep, so they aren’t too happy with your bro. What’s his deal anyways?” 

“The Tesseract…” Thor started, but trailed off as his brother let out a loud moan. Loki sat up, rubbing his temple with two fingers. He then made eye contact with Thor, blinking dazedly, his brow furrowed. Thor couldn’t help it, he smiled. Yes, they had parted on perhaps the worst circumstances imaginable, and yes, Loki appeared to be following the same path of destruction. But Loki was here, and he was alive. He was looking at Thor in unguarded confusion rather than disgust and rage. It took everything in Thor not to grab his brother in a fierce hug. 

“Loki,” He breathed, not entirely sure what to say. When Loki’s expression didn’t waver, Thor threw caution to the wind and pulled the younger man into an embrace that would have crushed a mortal. Loki didn’t return the hug, but he also didn’t stab Thor, so he would take it for what he could. That was until Loki spoke and his heart fell into his stomach. 

“Why is this blonde, muscular man hugging me, Stark?” Loki asked, obviously speaking to the Midgardian, not Thor. The tone was bemused, possibly the last thing Thor had expected. It was far too light for what was between them. 

“I’m thinking your brother missed you?” The man Loki had called Stark guessed. “I dunno. I did just tell him you were about to be arrested, that’s bound to make a guy a little concerned.” 

“Brother?” Loki questioned, pulling back from the embrace to eye Thor warily. Thor had thought it was the disorientation from waking, but now that Loki’s eyes were clear, he didn’t see a speck of recognition in them. What’s more, his eyes were a cold, ice blue rather than his usual bright green. Just what had happened to his brother? 

“Loki it’s me; it’s Thor.” He said, slightly ashamed at how his voice cracked. How could his brother not recognize him? A thousand years by each other’s sides couldn’t possibly be erased, could it? There was a flash of something when Thor spoke his name, though, a heat that hadn’t been there before. It faded quickly into Loki’s default wry expression. 

“Well this is an interesting defense tactic. Have a stranger pretend to be my brother and hug me into submission.” Loki said dryly. 

Suddenly, Thor tilted as his arms were wrapped around nothing, Loki now standing several feel away. Thor got to his feet and regarded the man who claimed not to recognize him. Even if he hadn’t had Heimdall’s confirmation, there was no question in Thor’s mind that this was his brother. His hair was longer, his skin paler, his armor was slightly different. But it was still Loki’s green and gold, his amused smirk. Those eyes though, they terrified Thor far beyond the color change, though he couldn’t quite explain why. It certainly didn’t help that they were looking at him with no history, just blank appraisal. Thor would have taken anger, hatred, all those emotions that were swimming in Loki’s eyes before he fell over whatever this was. 

“Whatever game you are playing, Loki, I am in no mood.” Thor growled getting frustrated. He just couldn’t learn his lesson could he? He kept letting Loki draw him into these tricks. This was a trick; it had to be. 

“Well that is unfortunate because I am always in the mood for games. I just wish I knew what this one was. Who are you?” Loki cocked his head curiously, an achingly familiar gesture. Loki was an excellent liar, but this felt off. Perhaps if Thor went along with the ruse he would learn more. 

“Could the void really have stolen your memories, brother? It’s me; it’s Thor.” 

Loki’s smile wavered at Thor’s mention of the void. As well it should, Thor couldn’t think about that bottomless chasm of blackness and swirling color without shuddering himself. He wouldn’t be surprised to find that it had driven his brother to further madness, but this didn’t feel like Loki’s mind was lost, just his memories. Otherwise his personality seemed stable, far more than before his fall. 

“Unless my father has adopted you since our last gathering several weeks ago, you are not my brother.” Loki insisted lightly. 

“Yeah, he seems to be sticking to the idea that Odin’s not his dad. I think you got cut out along with him, big guy.” Stark cut in. 

Thor turned to frown at Stark. When he looked back at his brother, Loki was shooting the mortal a particularly nasty look. Ah, that was what this was about. Loki’s adoption. Thor could have kicked himself for not realizing it sooner. ‘I’m not your brother; I never was.’ The words had made no sense to Thor during his and Loki’s fight. It wasn’t until Mother and Father had explained to him where Loki had come from that Thor had recognized the words, even if he couldn’t relate to them. 

“Loki, surely your birth can’t mean so much besides a lifetime with your family.” Thor pleaded. 

“You are absolutely right. You may be the son of Odin; you may call yourself my brother, but you are not my family.” Loki agreed genially before disappearing. 

“Seriously? After all that you let him get away?” The armored man groaned in frustration, advancing on Thor, who raised Mjolnir defensively. The man put up his hands in a gesture of surrender immediately. “No violence meant here, buddy. Don’t get me wrong, I can handle myself but I have no interest in going toe to toe with the God of Thunder, thank you very much.” 

“How is it you know who I am, yet my brother seems to have lost such?” Thor asked resignedly, dropping his hammer and sitting down on the couch. Being sent to Earth via dark energy wasn’t anything like the bifrost. It was far more exhausting. Loki’s words swirled through Thor’s head. What could he possibly have meant by agreeing with him, yet completely disagreeing? Loki had always been a wordsmith, but Thor had never felt more out of his depth. 

“Well, we both have access to the SHIELD files, so I don’t know. He didn’t think to look you up? Honestly, this seems like a textbook case of amnesia, but that only happens in bad sitcoms. Plus, he seems pretty certain of where he comes from and who his family is, it just doesn’t seem to gibe with what you think.” 

Yes, Thor had caught on to that, actually. Possibly not as quickly as this mortal seemed to gather the facts of the situation. Thor took a moment to really examine where he had found himself in his search for Loki. It appeared that this large tower possibly belonged to the man in front of him. He certainly seemed self-assured and boastful, especially for a mortal. But he also seemed to have a far better grasp on Loki’s situation than Thor. 

“What was Loki doing here, Stark?” Thor asked. 

“He was looking to steal JARVIS. Speaking of, JARVIS, buddy, please tell me you were running scans when the guy did his apparation routine. I want some data here!” Thor looked around for this Jarvis person that Stark was addressing but could see no one. 

“Yes, sir. Sending scan data now.” A voice came out of nowhere, startling Thor. 

“That’s just JARVIS, my AI. He’s awesome, hence why Loki wanted him.” Stark started manipulating the projections of data that appeared in front of him. This was far more advanced technology than Thor had seen previously on Earth. This man was definitely a potential asset in his quest. “Hey, Blondie. Come give me the skinny on Crazy. We’re on the clock here.” 

Thor was not looking forward to this partnership.


	7. Chapter Seven

Loki stumbled into his room, ready to collapse in his bed and let the last few hours wash over him. A task that would be a lot easier if there weren’t already someone occupying it. Loki groaned, he was not in the mood for this. Visions and emotions were swirling in his head and he needed to get a grip on himself. He had an Infinity Stone to obtain and he couldn’t afford any further distractions. 

So Loki stalked over to the sleeping figure and very quietly and deftly stuck a short dagger between her ribs. Nebula jumped out of the bed with a howl, glaring at Loki fiercely. Loki yawned and fell down into the space she had just been occupying. It was actually rather nice to have it all warmed up for him. 

“What the hell was that for?” Nebula gasped, plucking the dagger out quickly and putting a hand to her side to slow the bleeding. 

“You wanted your blade back didn’t you?” Loki asked, smiling sweetly. Nebula just glared. “Need I remind you once again? My bed, not yours.” 

“What’s got your horns in a twist?” Nebula asked, frowning at Loki’s tone. She sat down at the edge of the bed, indicating that she didn’t intend on leaving any time soon. 

“Absolutely nothing. Can’t I be tired? I may be stronger, faster, smarter, handsomer…” Loki trailed off at Nebula’s eye roll with a grin. “But even gods have to sleep.” 

“God?” Nebula questioned, eyebrows raised in concern. 

Where had that come from? Loki recalled his conversation with Stark, denying his kinship with that world of aspiring deities. He must have been more shaken by that blow than he had thought. Still, he was not going to elaborate to Nebula. 

“Maybe I’m finally embracing my origins. If the helm fits.” Loki said lightly. 

“No, that may fool everyone else, Brother, but not me. What’s going on with you?” Nebula asked. 

“I’m not going to enumerate all my many frustrations in obtaining the Space Stone for you, Nebula. Unless you would like to give me the intimate details on why you don’t have the Reality Stone yet?” At Nebula’s snarl, Loki chuckled. “That’s what I thought. See yourself out, little sister.” 

Loki rolled his shoulder, aching from the blow and turned to his side on the bed, facing the wall so he didn’t need to see whatever look crossed Nebula’s face at that. He tried to ignore the tightness he felt in the chest at what he had said. He was being increasingly thrown by these ridiculous emotions. He needed to find the Tesseract, kill that idiot Thor and take care of the annoying Stark, not necessarily in that order. He couldn’t afford the way they divided his focus, played with his mind. He could mend fences with Nebula once the Stone was in hand. 

Loki laid on his back and stared at the cold, metal ceiling. He scoffed in frustration; he was absolutely not afraid to close his eyes. It would be absurd for him to be scared of a random fever dream. Stubbornly, he closed his eyes for the rest that he so desperately needed. The white-haired, one-eyed man was staring disapprovingly at him. Loki huffed and turned onto his stomach, burying his face in a pillow and willing the vision behind his eyes to go black. But no, the vision he had seen when he had been once again so ingloriously knocked out by Stark would not leave him be. 

In the vision, Loki had been on his back. For a moment, reality had wavered and he hadn’t been quite sure that he was in a dream. But he wasn’t on a cold, stone floor in a tower of Midgard, he was outside in the dirt. A sweating, bearded blonde man was standing over him, staring down impassively. The man offered his hand to help Loki up, but he refused. Ignoring various aches and pains that hollered at him to stay down, Loki got to his feet. 

Adding to the indignity of the situation was that man. One would think that having one fewer eye to glare with would lessen the force. One would be very wrong. Loki fought to keep the shame from coloring his face, but with his complexion it was a losing battle. Unfortunately, Loki was starting to get very used to losing battles. 

“You aren’t improving like you should be.” The man spoke and Loki had to fight down the bitter taste of his disagreement. Not only was that patently untrue, his father said so well within the hearing of anyone currently in the practice yards. No one other than the sword master Loki just lost to appeared to be paying any attention, but they could be. 

“If you would just let me use my magic,” Loki started petulantly, but he knew it was a lost cause. An old argument, one that will never be done. 

“Magic is all well and good for tricks or when there is no other way,” Odin acknowledged. “But you are a Prince of Asgard and therefore must acquit yourself as a warrior. With honor. What kind of warrior can barely hold a sword? What honor is there in hiding behind tricks?” 

The knot of protest constricted Loki’s throat. He may not be the warrior Thor was, but he was far from incompetent. He didn’t understand this distaste for using magic on the battlefield. Odin didn’t disapprove of his learnings persay, but he actively refused to allow Loki to use them in any practical sense. It was maddening. Why shouldn’t he use his strengths on the battlefield, just as Thor used his muscles? Loki was fairly sure that if he was allowed to fight as he willed even Thor would be hard-pressed to defeat him. 

As if sensing Loki’s line of thought, Odin continued. “Thor is out here every morning practicing. I don’t see you out here at dawn. Perhaps we should make that your punishment.” 

Thor is out in the yards every morning showing off, Loki thought spitefully. He hasn’t truly needed practice in centuries. There were none who could come close to defeating him, especially with Mjolnir. Loki can remember a time when Thor had been stocky and ungainly, learning and failing in his attempts at the sword. But those days were long behind them. For his part, Loki hasn’t quite moved beyond that stage, already now far older than his brother had been when he had come into his own. Loki was starting to suspect that he would never build the muscles that the warriors around him sported. He would never fill out into a barrel chested, built-up beast of a man that was so prized. He told himself that he preferred that. Loki lied to himself as often as he lied to others. And in that frustration, Loki couldn’t quite hold back his biting words. 

“Ah yes, please tell me more about how I should be more like the oaf who can barely string together a coherent sentence.” 

Odin’s eye flashed in rage and quicker than Loki could track the movement, his father’s hand struck his face. It was an open palmed slap, nothing particularly hard. It wouldn't even leave a red mark for more than a few seconds, but the shock of it brought tears to Loki’s eyes. He fought them down, refusing to look more weak and womanly than he already did. Loki could feel the eyes of everyone around them quickly divert. He would bet that not a single person was even looking in their direction, and yet he felt all of their attention. 

“Jealousy doesn’t suit a Prince of Asgard,” was all Odin said before walking away, the worldless dismissal obvious. 

Loki wanted to disappear, the fact that he was completely capable of the act only made the feeling worse. If he did cloak himself in invisibility or just teleported back to his rooms, it would be no different than just breaking into sobs here in front of everyone. Loki wrestled with some way, any way he could gather his last shreds of dignity to himself and start walking off this training ground. 

Loki flinched as a hand clapped him roughly on the shoulder. Loki looked over at Thor’s beaming face and he wanted to lash out. Smack that smile off the oaf’s face much as Odin had to him. He knew Thor was just trying to help, to diffuse the situation. Thor had no idea what Loki just said, the spiteful lies he just spoke. Thor wasn’t stupid, not really. He may not be a great hand at his studies or words, but it was only because he put his time into being a warrior. Exactly as Odin wanted. But Loki couldn’t help but speculate that a king would do far better with learning and language than a sword. 

“Don’t give up, Loki. You just need to try harder. Practice more. Come train with me at dawn.” Thor offered. Loki told himself that it came from a place of love. It was the only way he could keep from ripping into his brother. But the problem was that Thor truly had no idea what the problem was. More so, he didn’t even care to ask. He just assumed. It was almost worse than if he rubbed it in. 

“Of course.” Loki said dully. “Practice will fix everything.” The idiot took no notice of the cynicism in Loki’s words and just nodded. 

Loki opened his eyes again, banishing the dream once more. It was a dream. It had to be. The problem was that Loki had no frame of reference. Loki couldn’t remember ever having dreamt anything before. Who was he to know if they were supposed to be that vivid? That disturbing? But it made as little sense as a dream was supposed to. 

Loki couldn’t even remember Asgard, he had been far too young when Thanos had rescued him. This dream had him as young, but just on the cusp of manhood. Then all this ridiculous throwing out of centuries as if they were decades. As if any being could possibly live that long. Loki wasn’t quite sure of his age, but he couldn’t be any older than a century, right? Just the thought hurt his head. 

Loki shook his head as if he could knock loose the confusing vision. The headache that had been starting merely intensified, causing an odd buzzing in his ears. Loki rubbed at his ears, his temples, he shut his eyes willing the pain to be gone. 

Loki wasn’t sure if it was a second or an hour later but his headache finally alleviated. What was it that he had been thinking about? His fight with Stark, yes, that was it. Stark had caused some sort of brain damage or something. Fortunately, Loki had always been a quick healer so it was just a headache, easily banished. This was merely a distraction, possibly the very distraction Stark and Thor intended. Loki was playing right into their hands. No, he was going about this all wrong.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...things are definitely moving forward and Loki"s definitely changing. I'm not saying there aren't still dark times ahead because.... well I'm just not. But things are definitely taking a bit of a silly turn to offset the dark. Hope that still works for you, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up so they didn't get tonal whiplash. Basically what I am trying to say in way too many words is henceforth, here there be crack.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. 

“Ah... Tones? What are you doing?” 

Thump. Ow. Thump. Ow. Thump. Ow 

“I really don’t think that’s productive.” Rhodey continued as he moved deeper into the workshop. 

Tony stopped banging his head on the workbench briefly to regard his best friend. “You don’t know that. I could shake something clever loose. Besides, it can’t be any less productive than I have been lately.” 

“Is this about the Pym building?” Rhodey asked, his brow furrowed with concern. 

The Pym building. Fuck, wasn’t that the proverbial cherry on top of the shit sundae that had been the last few weeks? Tony had to give it up to the God of Chaos. The man really knew how to up his supervillain game. It wasn’t more than a day after their tower confrontation that the water supply had been poisoned. The symptoms were similar to that of dysentery but there was no discernable parasite to treat for. Dozens of people died from being given the anti-microbial before they realized that it was the medicine that was killing them and all they needed to do is keep the victims hydrated and wait for it to go away. In a week. Magically, because what the hell else could it have been other than magic, the water was completely clean the very next day. It had been a messy week, in all facets of the word, but there had been no sign of Loki. 

It was weird, off-putting. Everything Loki had done previously had been related to trying to get the Tesseract. Even the trying to steal JARVIS was obviously to give him an edge. So what was the play here? What was he trying to accomplish other than mayhem? Tony couldn’t help but think it had to be related to Thor’s sudden arrival. When you were the God of Mischief, could something like this be considered stress relief? 

The next week’s stunt had been...interesting. Loki had hijacked Shakespeare in the Park’s rendition of Hamlet. No joke, hijacked as in he had all of the actors tied up in a corner watching as he and several carbon copies of himself performed all of the parts. Then he forced the entire audience to rapturously applause and bow before his amazingness. Tony kinda had to give props to the guy’s ego; the man gave Anthony Edward Stark a run for his money and that was saying something. 

The weird thing was, it was crazy public and kinda scary, but no one got hurt. The actors suffered from some minor rope burns from their bonds, but that had honestly been the worst that had come from the whole endeavour. So what the hell was the point? 

Actually no, the rope burns hadn’t been the worst thing. The worst thing was that the whole stunt had been so public that SHIELD had seen fit to call in some backup for Iron Man. Thor had joined him, of course, having already agreed to help SHIELD subdue his psycho brother. They had also pulled in that liar, Natasha and, wait for it, Captain Fucking America. 

No, Tony was not going to wallow in daddy issues and inferiority complexes. The Captain had saved a lot of people when Loki had blown up the Pym building. It had been a Saturday Night, so the building hadn’t been particularly full, but Iron Man definitely couldn’t have saved everyone by himself. With Rogers’ and Thor’s help, not a single person had died, to Loki’s intense dismay. Tony knew it was to his dismay because Loki had appeared hovering over the wreckage whining about how boring it had been. Tony had socked that punchable face so hard that he was sure Loki had passed out again, even without the repulsor. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to confirm it since Loki had popped away, you know like he does. 

“No, we saved everyone from the Pym building; it was a freaking miracle. This is about Pepper.” Tony groaned. 

“Pepper…” Rhodey drew out the name as if pondering if Tony was crazy. Tony was used to this. “You are on a team of superheroes dealing with an alien god screwing up New York City on a weekly basis, but Pepper is making you bang your head on your workbench. Repeatedly.” 

“Exactly! Superhero stuff is awesome!” Tony exclaimed. 

“You need help.” 

Tony ignored him. “Pepper is all hard and confusing.” 

“What’s going on?” Rhodey asked, finally accepting that he was going to be having this conversation whether he liked it or not. 

“So you know we did the whole kiss thing.” Tony started. 

“Yes, cause I was there. I wish I hadn’t been, but there it is.” 

“Yeah, exactly. We haven’t moved on from there at all. I feel like this could be something. I’m trying to do this new thing where I act like a grown-up and try to have a real relationship.” 

“How is that going?” Rhodey asks, deadpan. 

“A crazy-alien keeps cock-blocking me and I have to go beat him up.” Tony finished. And that was the really strange thing about it all. Loki always attacked when Tony and Pepper had a date. It gave the whole thing a personal feel, though Tony really couldn’t understand what Loki’s play was. What was more, the last attack, the one on the Pym building. Hank Pym would be what many people would consider Tony’s biggest rival. But his company had taken a decided hit what with losing their headquarters and therefore all of their physical assets and in progress projects. Tony had the crazy idea that this had been some angle of Loki’s to get to him. Hell if Tony could figure out why. 

“That’s definitely an issue.” Rhodey said. Completely unhelpful, seriously, Tony had no idea why he kept the guy around. “Why don’t you schedule two dates in a row? One very public and on the next day something more private. Loki will inevitably attack on the first day but he wont have enough time to plan something for the next.” 

“That’s...actually really smart. Hey look at you go!” Tony exclaimed. 

“Could you be any more condescending? I got my Masters from MIT same as you.” Rhodey scowled. Tony just patted him soothingly on the shoulder, only half paying attention. He had some dates to plan. 

 

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/ 

 

“Uh, boss?” Clint asked, walking forward hesitantly to where Loki was staring into space. Loki started at the mortal’s words. He knew he had been thinking on something, but it flew from his head the moment Barton spoke. 

“Yes?” Loki asked impatiently. It seemed to happen more and more often these days. He knew he was deep in thought about some matter or another, but the minute his attention wandered it was gone. Loki could have been drifting to sleep for all he knew. It was endlessly frustrating for someone who so prized his sharp mind. It was Stark’s fault. The man was doing something to Loki; he had to be. 

Barton took a long draught from his mug. Loki could swear that he actually saw the man draw energy from the brew. Loki had tried it recently on a whim as he had not been sleeping well, also Stark’s fault no doubt. The drink was bitter beyond anything he had ever tasted. It was far from palatable. Barton had laughed and told Loki that most people drink it with at least some cream and sugar but Loki couldn’t imagine that the taste could be that much improved and gave the whole thing up as folly. 

“So… not that it’s my place or anything because hey, you’re the boss here and I’m still getting paid, but…” The man started looking nervous. 

“I’m not going to stab you for asking a question, Barton.” Loki assured him. Mortals were unfortunately fragile that way. One good stab and they were done in. Against his better judgement, Loki liked Clint. He had a dry sense of humor and a calm assurance that Loki found to be comfortable. 

“Ok, that’s good. Not sure who mentioned stabbing, but since you’re saying you won’t I’m just going to go with it. I’m just looking for a little direction here, boss. See, there haven’t been any new leads on the Tesseract in weeks and you haven’t exactly been forthcoming on the reasons behind your….projects. All you’ve asked me is when Stark was busy. So here I am wondering what you need me around for? Not that I don’t mind the money, it rocks, but I kinda want to earn it. I’m weird that way.” Barton finished, frowning uneasily until Loki chuckled. The mortal smiled wryly then. 

“What would you say Stark’s biggest weakness is?” Loki asked. 

“Uh… he’s a total manwhore?” At Loki’s startled look, Clint laughed and clarified. “Not literally. But he’ll sleep with anything that moves.” 

“Male as well?” Loki asked. 

Clint raised a speculative eyebrow. “I could do some digging, but not that I’m aware of. It wouldn’t surprise me though. Why the focus on Stark specifically?” 

“He and his AI are hiding the Tesseract. I am almost certain of it.” He also has some strange power over my mind that I am compelled to explore, Loki finished inwardly. He certainly was not going to admit to that out loud, not even to a mostly loyal lieutenant. 

“And you are thinking seduction is the way to play this?” Clint asked sceptically. 

Loki contemplated whether he should take offense to that. He didn’t immediately kill the man for even the implication of such. Interesting. Was this a maturity thing? He didn’t seem to have quite the temper lately that he was used to. He wasn’t entirely sure whether this was a boon or a detriment. 

“Am I not attractive by your mortal standards?” Loki asked instead. 

Barton looked him up and down appraisingly. Loki felt strangely discomfited by the weight of judgement. He was also intensely curious how Barton would respond. The man was generally very straightforward, but surely he wouldn’t blithely insult his employer? Still, Loki fought not to squirm. 

“You’ve got the whole manly, medieval armour thing going on, which is definitely unusual but not bad. But yeah, the long hair, green eyes, androgynous features really work for you. You’re pretty much sex on a stick for anyone who’s into that kind of thing , I just don’t know if that includes Stark.” 

Loki was not going to ask what ‘sex on a stick’ meant. He really didn’t want to know. Suffice to say the appraisal was positive. Now they could move on from this very uncomfortable conversation. 

“Take a look and see what you can determine about Stark’s preferences. If it can be done, we’ll see how seduction compares to brute force. I can’t imagine it could turn out worse. Also, start to put together a list of courting practices. I have no idea what you all do to woo one another and I don’t want to look the fool.” 

“You got it, boss.” Clint gave Loki a thumbs up and headed back to his desk. Not before getting another cup of coffee, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As if my Time Stone Series didn't have enough Shakespeare, I had to wedge it in this one too. Suffice to say I am a bit obsessed. I blame Tom Hiddleston and David Tennant.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... we're back! This chapter brought to by the indomitable Rabentochter!
> 
> Not going to guarantee any consistent posting schedule from here on out but I promise to try to get through it!

Hopefully no Loki again, was all Tony could think on one of his dates with Pepper. 

Ok, so this was the ‘set-up’ date with Pepper where Loki was expected to interrupt the date; nothing would be lost should this date go to hell. They already scheduled another tomorrow or this evening, depending how long Loki would take for whatever drama he had cooked up this time. It was all carefully planned, got the Rhodey-Stamp-of-Approval, so nothing could go wrong now. 

Then again, Tony couldn’t help but remember their last date that had been interrupted by Loki. The alien standing there in his ridiculous armor and even more ridiculous helmet demanding that they all to kneel, like they were supposed to be good little ants to the owner of their little ant farm called Earth. 

Clearly, Loki thought himself a higher being, despite all his disputes about the Norse Gods, and it could be hilarious when it wasn’t so damn serious. That and the fact that it all seemed to be at the expense of Tony’s happiness. Because that date had been absolutely ruined. Pepper’s face, falling in a look of disappointment and hurt as he took off once again was going to stick with him for a while. Tony never wanted her to believe that anything was more important to him than she was, but he kept consistently proving himself wrong. He had to call his Iron Man suit and fight Loki, who of course just twisted the dagger in his gut further by laughing and just disappearing on him. 

“You know, I wouldn’t put it past Loki try to interrupt us again,” Tony said to Pepper, grinning. “It almost seems as if he’s only attacking when we’re on a date.” 

“Oh.” Pepper didn’t sound happy. Tony’s attempt at lightening the mood, and possibly shifting the blame, had obviously failed. 

“Yes.” Tony shrugged and winked at her. Let’s try this again. “Must be the beautiful company I’m in.” 

“Sure it is.” Pepper rolled her eyes with a smile. “Let’s just hope Loki won’t interrupt us again, alright? No kneeling, no suits, no superhero stuff at all. Let’s just try to focus on us.” 

It all sounded so easy coming from her lips, and really there was no reason it shouldn’t have been that easy. In Tony’s opinion, it had been going well. He had fun, Pepper laughed and made some jokes as well. He loved her humor, oh god, she really should make jokes more often, the dryness, it was hilarious. He had just started to relax when things took a turn south once again. 

It all went wrong when Pepper asked the most innocuous of questions. She merely asked him how the last few days had been for him, what had happened. See, Tony took it as an invitation to start rambling, you know, like he was so good at. He complained about Loki and his latest act of chaos. This time he had somehow managed to paint every airplane within 500 square miles green. That wasn’t even his evil plan! It was merely a distraction as he tried to rob a bank in Manhattan. The levels of over-the-topness with this guy was absurd, even for Tony. Yet no matter how much it pained Tony to admit it, his plan had been a stroke of genius. Nobody was paying attention to some random bank when airplanes were being repainted in new colors. One plane was particularly memorable; it had included a quote of Shakespeare’s, “When Love speaks, the voice of all Gods, makes heaven drowsy with all harmony” on the right side. The left side simply stated “Kneel”. Maybe Loki had a kink there. Maybe Tony should stop evaluating Loki’s kinks... 

“Tony.” 

“Yes?” He looked up to Pepper, who held her glass of wine in a hand and looked absolutely exhausted. When had that happened? She hadn’t looked nearly that tired when he had started talking. 

“Tony, I’ve asked you a simple question. And I know your life is incredible and a lot of interesting things happen...” 

“Oh damn,” he groaned. “How long did I go on for? It was too much, wasn’t it?” 

“No,” she sighed and took a sip from her glass, emptying it. Tony grabbed the bottle to refill her glass for her and realized it was empty. When the hell had that happened? “I don’t mind you rambling at me, Tony. God knows I’m used to it. It’s just...” 

“Yes?” Oh god, he had fucked this up, hadn’t he? 

“Tony, you’ve been talking about Loki now for over an hour.” 

“What?” Ok, maybe that’s where the wine had gone. 

“Did you know that for at least fifty percent of what time we actually had on our last three dates you talked about Loki?” 

“What?” That just seemed impossible. 

“You have mentioned his name at least once in texts or emails every day for the last week.” Pepper continued. 

What? The question just kept repeating in Tony’s head, but he decided not to verbalize it. This was already going downhill fast and Tony didn’t think it would help. 

She nodded. Tony looked at her, incredulity painted on his face. 

“Tony, you are amazing otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed to those dates; we wouldn’t have started exploring this potential romantic side of our relationship at all. But I really wonder if it’s me you want to have on that date.” She winked at him. Pepper was breaking his heart and yet she was winking at him. What the hell was going on? 

“What?” Ok, well if Pepper was already dealing the crushing blow, how much worse could he make it? 

“Loki might appreciate it more than I do.” With that ridiculous, blatantly untrue statement, Pepper stood up fluidly, grabbed her purse and bent down to press a kiss to his cheek. 

“Pepper, I…” Tony stammered. Come on idiot, he mentally berated himself, you’re so good with words, where the hell were they? How was it he could always come up with some quip to shoot back to Loki, but with Pepper… yeah, never mind. Tony was not going to delve into exploring that. 

“No, Tony.” Pepper shut off his line of thinking quickly and shook her head. “Listen, it has been fun, and I enjoyed it, mostly, when you were around. But I don’t think we click that way. We obviously have very different priorities here. Especially since I would very much like to remain your friend and CEO, I’d rather end this now before it gets too serious and we end up hurt.” 

With that, Pepper walked away. Tony watched her; his brain surprisingly blank. It really did feel like a small heartbreak. Yes, he didn’t love Pepper as yet, but he liked her a lot. He cared about her and he had these romantic fantasies about how it could turn into love. He had pictured them both as couple quite well. Her getting him to actually settle down, sluff off the playboy mantle with marriage, maybe even kids. 

It was weird how other thoughts seemed to intrude on his wallowing. He would have to cancel all plans and reservations that had already been made for the next date. The real date. The one that was actually supposed to take them to that next step and show Pepper where his priorities lay. Tony groaned and sank a bit deeper in his chair. 

Loki had not only cock-blocked him on a regular basis but had now firmly and permanently girlfriend-blocked him. Rhodey was going to laugh his ass off once Tony worked up the courage to tell him about it. There he was, a poor sod, alone in a restaurant, not done with his dinner yet. His first attempt in years at a serious and committed relationship got shot down in flames by an alien that had wanted to steal his AI. Which was Tony’s actual, only committed relationship, because that wasn’t sad at all. 

First, his AI, now his happy and glorious future. 

Tony sighed, and tossed his napkin on the table. Funny how his appetite had walked out with Pepper. He just threw a couple of bills on the table for the dinner and left, wandering back to the Tower, hoping Jarvis would come up with a good distraction. He’d see Pepper again in a few days and yes, he still had to mull over her words. 

It was patently ridiculous. The idea that he would want anything more than beating the villain. The idea that Loki would want anything more from him. That was an odd thought. Loki had specifically interrupted his dates. But really, Pepper was completely off her rocker. Yet her statements about how often Tony had talked about swam in his head. Had he really brought the alien up that much? He almost couldn’t believe he had spent most of their limited time talking about Loki as if there wasn’t anything more important in this universe, like the date. Yeah, this was definitely a problem. 

 

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/ 

 

No, Loki refused to believe it. That was a ludicrous piece of advice and Barton surely was trying to trick him into doing something stupid. 

All those flirting tips, they must be outdated and if they weren’t, Loki had to doubt the mental state of humanity. Each bit of advice sounded more idiotic than the next and there seemed to be no end to Barton’s expertise. 

And maybe Loki only didn’t trust him because the glint in Barton’s eyes was so unfamiliar. The man perhaps enjoyed himself a bit too much in Loki’s opinion, but then again, that could be the coffee Barton inhaled. 

“How many cups have you already drank today?” Loki asked, as he often did. 

“I think this is my ninth cup?” Barton shrugged and raised his mug to take another sip of the unholy brown drink. “But seriously, take my advice to heart if you want Stark to fall for your charm.” 

Loki raised a brow. The emphasis on ‘charm’ didn’t sit right with him. “Do you mean to mock me, Barton?” 

“No.” That seemed genuine enough. 

Loki scoffed. “Then I thank you for your helpful advice, but I will try my method first.” 

“I don’t think Stark is all too fond of getting told to kneel all the time.” Barton countered. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the man has a serious ego on him.” 

Loki waved Barton’s concern off, refilling his cup with coffee to make him shut up. Thankfully Barton interpreted it correctly and switched to the next topic. 

The tesseract. Loki still suspected strongly that it was with Stark, it had to be with the noisy Midgardian. Otherwise, it would all be for naught and he wouldn’t let Nebula win even when he adored her. Not to mention his other siblings, as they got called so often by Thanos. Loki couldn’t even contemplate any of them winning the prize, Gamora in particular. Loki just wanted to win because he was the only rightful heir. And now, he was sitting all he had on Stark. Of course, the man was oblivious to that fact, but he better had the tesseract stashed away somewhere in his ridiculous tall Tower because if not, Loki would forget that the word ‘mercy’ existed in his memory and unleash his fury on Stark, with the appropriate amount of charm of course. 

Loki’s plan had been to interrupt Stark’s date again, to shout ‘kneel’ and try to make the Midgardian smile or something similar, but after a little bit of reconnaissance he chose not to. As it turned out, it was far more interesting to listen to Stark on his date. Loki had used his magic to turn into a nondescript customer, sat down at a table just close enough to them to hear but not so close as to be noticed and listened. 

It was fascinating. Stark talked the whole time, not about himself like Loki maybe thought he’d do, no, he talked about Loki instead. Laughed about the new paint job on the airplanes and had more praised than insulted Loki and his pranks. 

Suddenly, Stark was even more interesting than before, tesseract aside. He seemed like he enjoyed Loki’s more harmless tricks even if he had complained about Loki’s more harmful acts as well. 

Barton had dug up somewhere that Stark was actually interested in men, but that he had managed to keep it out of the public scrutiny. Loki sipped on his wine, tasting the rich flavor and watched full of curiosity when Stark’s chosen companion declared that whatever they had was done and over with. Even indicating that Loki may take to Stark’s romantic overtures far better than she would. 

This meant that Stark was free, and he needn’t to bother with arranging an accident for the red-haired woman. It was slightly disappointing. He had a very clever plan to get rid of her, something painful and sure to break the poor man’s heart. But it seemed that the woman had done the heart-breaking for him. All his plans were finally working out beautifully, without him having to do all that much. Loki grinned lazily and observed Stark when he was left alone at the table, looking thoroughly dejected. 

There were a few who sent pitying or gleeful glances towards Stark, Loki simply regarded him with curiosity. Maybe he should take up Barton’s advice? It was clear he had the man’s interest with his own stunts, but if he could be this heartbroken about some woman, they weren’t hitting him in any romantic sense just yet. Who was he to deny the custom here, ridiculous as it was? And Stark could use something familiar after the oh-so-tragic ending this relationship just had. Customs would give him a feeling of familiarity and belonging, and wouldn’t that just lead to him trusting Loki quicker and more? 

It sounded logical in Loki’s mind. And logical usually meant success and success was something Loki craved. Loki grinned and polished off the wine in his glass. Somehow, the wine tasted even better.


	10. Chapter Ten

Loki couldn’t remember when he was last free of this persistent ache in his head. He wanted nothing more than to lie in bed, eyes closed, in the dark and quiet and will it away. But here he was, resting not on his bed but on a giant metal bull in the center of the city’s financial district, waiting for the Avengers to arrive. 

While he was waiting, Loki indulged in his second favorite form of stress relief and took out a few innocent bystanders. Just a few zaps of magic and they were dust in the wind. It was normally very satisfying, this show of power and strength, but he found the experience oddly cold. This too was becoming a usual occurrence. Loki felt...detached. He found it hard to access those internal wells of rage and thirst for power. Nothing seemed to really appeal to him, well, that is except just one thing. 

His current item of interest landed in front of him, resplendent in a suit of red and gold. Unfortunately, he was accompanied by the patriot, the spy, the beast and the oaf. 

“So, what’s the game, Bambi?” Stark asked, holding up his hand as the blue circle of energy in its center came to life. Loki fought his desire to preen; it looked like Barton was right about one thing, Stark really did like the helmet. It gave him the confidence to do the next item on his employee's list. 

“What game? I am merely taking in lunch. This just seemed like an adequate place to rest before taking my leave.” Loki replied innocently, gesturing to the statue. 

“And the piles of ash around you?” The captain asked, looking at the dust strewn ground around them. 

“They ruined the view.” Loki said coldly, pleased when it made the captain wince. 

“Brother, this isn’t you. You’ve always courted chaos, but this unnecessary violence and death? Please come back with us so we can talk.” Thor begged. 

“Brother? Who could you possibly be referring to?” Loki asked, looking around himself as if trying to find the person Thor was actually talking to. Then he shook his head, the questioning expression on his face melting into something cold and stony. “Oh, wait. I don’t care.” 

“Ouch. Burn!” Tony said. Unfortunately, with the mechanical voice, Loki couldn’t tell if he was amused or disapproving. 

“Excuse me, heroes. I just have a little business to take care of and then I’ll be out of your hair.” Loki said before teleporting. He appeared just behind Stark and he had a hand on the armor-clad shoulder and was teleporting away before the mortals could react to his initial disappearance. 

Loki and Stark re-appeared on the roof of a nearby tower, just far enough away to ensure their privacy. Loki knew he couldn’t begin any courtship proceedings with Stark in front of his do-gooder band. The hero would be too concerned about their judgement to reciprocate as Loki hoped. No, he needed the man alone, and that was in short supply lately as SHIELD seemed to have caught on that Loki was far more interested in Stark than anyone else. Of course, it was only because Loki needed the Tesseract and SHIELD’s response in keeping Stark surrounded just solidified Loki’s belief that he had the Space Stone. 

“What the fuck, Jumper? What are we doing here?” Stark asked when he regained his equilibrium. 

Loki retracted the faceplate on Stark’s helmet so he could look at the man and get a better sense for the tone behind his words. It was also necessary for what Barton had said was the first step in any mortal courtship. 

“You are here, because you and I needed a little alone time, Stark.” Loki said, advancing on the mortal until they were mere inches apart. Loki smiled at the mortal’s look of uncertainty. Loki raised a finger slowly and lightly, but deliberately, tapped Stark’s nose three times as Clint had told him. 

There were a lot of reactions Loki had anticipated to this courtship overture: surprise, interest, lust, disgust, uncertainty. He very much did not expect a well-armored punch to his own nose. 

Loki was hiding behind a dark red, velvet curtain, desperately trying to stifle his giggles behind his small hand. He was shoulder to shoulder with the boy next to him, who was doing an even worse job of being quiet, his blue eyes shining with mirth, his blonde hair disheveled from their run. 

“Shhhh!” Loki commanded the other boy, but broke into more laughter as soon as he finished the noise. 

“Maybe this will help,” The other boy responded, stuffing an apple pastry into Loki’s mouth. Loki groaned at the glorious mixture of sweet and spice and was pleased that the mouthful did actually help stifle the noise. The other boy had stuffed his own face as well, smiling at Loki as best he could with a full mouth. 

As suddenly as it had come on, the vision faded. Loki blinked for a moment, disoriented at this experience that felt completely new and at the same time entirely familiar. He shut his eyes again tight, willing the images to return, but couldn’t bring them back. 

How? How could he have possibly forgotten this? These visions, specters, alternate realities, memories? He shuddered at the possibility of these being actual memories. If that was the case and he had actually grown to even that age with Thor, because who else could that golden boy be but Thor? Not to mention the vision where they had been much older that he now suddenly remembered again, then it would mean that Thor was telling the truth. It would mean that his entire existence was a lie. 

Loki opened his eyes, looking up into Stark’s startled face. 

“You know, if you keep falling asleep on me I am going to start thinking that I'm boring. And that would be a tragedy.” Tony drawled. 

Loki quickly got to his feet and stood before the hero again. Stark took up a defensive stance but appeared to be waiting for Loki to make a move. 

“Hit me again.” Loki ordered him. 

“Wait, what?” Stark actually put his hand down in surprise. 

“Strike me again!” Loki yelled. 

“Ok, I don’t know what kind of masochistic tendencies you’re working out right now but I’m not into sadism.” Stark responded, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. 

So, Loki shrugged and walked up to Stark and punched him in the temple, where he was still protected by the helmet. The hero responded instinctively and hit Loki with the repulsor and Loki found his vision going black again. 

Loki was standing in a corridor of columns and draperies, dressed in his best armor and waiting for Thor to finally arrive. Only Thor could be late to his own coronation. When Loki’s brother finally arrived, he looked every inch the king in his silver armor and red cape. As happened all too often these days, Loki felt a stab of jealousy, of frustration, because he still couldn’t understand what made Thor more worthy than he. Quick behind this feeling was a measure of guilt, for what he was about to do. He wouldn’t let that stop him, though. Loki knew that in the end, however much it hurt Thor, it would be for the best. 

“Nervous, brother?” Loki asked with a smirk. Thor smiled back at him and laughed, appearing confident as ever. At least, he would to anyone who didn’t know him. 

“Have you ever known me to be nervous?” 

“Well, there was the time in Nornheim…” Loki started. Remembering one of very few adventures where he actually hadn’t been sure that they would make it out alive. 

“That was not nerves, Brother. That was the rage of battle.” Thor insisted. Trust Thor to completely forget being frozen in fear as long as they had come out of it with their lives. They hadn’t even gotten that sword that he had been so desperate to win. Of course, that was before he had won Mjolnir. 

“Ah, I see.” Loki said, instead of all of these counters. What was the point? 

“How else could I have fought my way through a hundred warriors and pulled us out alive?” Thor asked. 

Loki looked at him for a moment; he honestly couldn’t believe that Thor had actually said that. Forgetting, for a moment that there had been fifty warriors, sixty at most, that was not how it had happened at all. This time Loki couldn’t keep his mouth shut. 

“Ah, as I recall, I was the one who veiled us in smoke to ease our escape.” They literally had not fought even one of those warriors, already injured and outnumbered as they were. 

Thor laughed, because of course he did. “Ah yes, some do battle, others just do tricks.” 

Loki fought to keep his feelings off his face. Guilt was long gone now. He couldn’t wait to see his brother’s expression when his big day was ruined. Loki didn’t even notice that they were no longer alone until he heard a laugh at Thor’s words. A servant, sent to bring Thor more wine no doubt, seemed inordinately pleased at Thor’s jibe. 

It took no more than a small hand gesture and the servant looked at his tray in confusion as the contents of the cup started to wriggle. He dropped the tray and yelped when he realized what he was now holding. Stepping back as the snakes that had once been wine slithered away on the ground. The man looked up at Loki, now in fear rather than amusement. It was his turn to laugh. 

“Loki,” Thor said reproachfully. “Now that was just a waste of good wine.” 

Because of course Thor didn’t give a damn about the servant or even why Loki had done it in the first place. But Loki held the expression of amusement, it was more satisfying than any of his true feelings. 

“Oh, just a bit of fun. Right, my friend?” Loki asked the servant, waving away the snakes still moving around on the floor. 

The servant nodded but hurried away. Loki kept up the laughter and Thor joined him good-naturedly. A little verbal sparring about their ceremonial helms and suddenly all was as it once was. The worst thing about hating Thor was how often he didn’t hate him at all. Loki found it difficult, even for him, to maintain any level of anger at the oaf for too long. 

“I’ve looked forward to this day as long as you have. My brother, my friend, sometimes I’m envious, but never doubt that I love you.” Even for the liesmith it was odd to be so deceiving with his words, yet mean every one of them. He did love Thor, but not more than Asgard. Not so much that he wouldn’t hurt him for his own good, as well as Loki’s. 

When this new vision faded, Loki looked up at a cloud speckled blue sky. For a moment, he startled, worried that Stark would notice his return to consciousness and take advantage. But as he looked around, Stark was nowhere to be seen. He had just left? He hadn’t wanted to capture Loki, kill him or even just discuss what had happened? It seemed odd, but Loki couldn’t ponder on it now. He had much bigger concerns weighing on his mind.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...more second-hand embarrassment coming

Tony was well and truly confused. It was not often that he was this at a loss for the situation he was in. He was a genius, of course, but it would take a far smarter man than he to determine just what the hell Loki was up to. The man in question was currently grinning at him from across the table over the top of the menu that he was perusing. Loki’s fingers were tap-tapping on the table expectantly; he was obviously waiting for Tony to say something. The alien knew the billionaire well enough by now to know that he was rarely at a loss for words. 

Tony, however, could not tap his fingers anxiously, considering that his arms were bound to his sides via magic. He had tried to get up, but his legs didn’t seem to want to straighten in a way that would allow him to get out of his chair. It was all very disconcerting, but much less painful than being actually bound. 

“Ok, I’m getting serious mixed signals here. You kidnapped me; which, bad. But now we’re at one of my favorite restaurants; which good. But I’m not allowed to leave or, you know, move; bad again. What the hell, Loki? I’m struggling to see the evil plan behind all this.” Tony said finally. Based on the menu propped in front of him to mirror Loki’s, Tony could guess that he was going to be fed as well. What could the villain possibly hope to accomplish by providing Tony a meal from an upscale burger place known for its creative burger toppings and craft beer? None of this made an ounce of sense. 

Loki seemed to be of the same mind because he frowned in confusion at Tony then. “I made the initial overture to our courtship last week. We’re onto the next step, a date. Haven’t you ever been on a date before, Stark?” 

“A date!?!” A date. A date? A date! Nope, it didn’t matter how many times, or how many ways Tony said those words in his head, he could not process that it was what Loki truly meant by a date. 

“Yes, you take your intended out for a meal. You select their food for them to indicate your knowledge of their tastes and they reciprocate with physical displays of affection.” Loki replied, the barest bit of uncertainty in his voice. 

“Yeah, I know what a date is. That is… kinda accurate.” In a weird, old fashioned, kind of caveman-y way. “Wait, what overtures of courtship have you made before now?” Tony was pretty damn sure he’d remember something that went beyond their usual fighting and snarking. Shit, unless that was code for flirting wherever Loki came from. But, if it was, wouldn’t Thor have said something? Unless, Loki got this in exchange for losing all his memories of growing up with Thor. Damn it, aliens were complicated! 

“I have quoted your Bard, worn my helmet, as it is your preferred garb, and I officially announced my intentions toward you by tapping your nose thrice.” Loki said, uncertainty winning over the expression on his face. His fingers had stopped tapping, but were twitching like he was struggling not to pull them in for some nervous gesture. Hell, the guy was practically squirming. “I have been assured that these are the usual romantic overtures one makes here.” 

Tony just started laughing. He seriously wanted to meet whoever fed Loki this bullshit. Whoever they were, they had serious balls and a sense of humor. Tony relished in pure amusement for several minutes; right up until he caught a glimpse of Loki’s face. 

He should have anticipated that Loki would be pissed at looking stupid and to have Tony laugh at him for it. And yes, there was tension in that look, but it seemed more frustrated than angry. But more than that, Loki’s face fell into something disappointed, sad even. All the smug confidence that Loki wore so well, melting off into something vulnerable. Seeing it caused some odd, uncomfortable squirming in Tony’s stomach that he wasn’t interested in examining too closely. As soon as the villain noticed that Tony’s attention was back on him, the face snapped back into cold blankness. Tony was surprised by how his heart clenched a bit at the change in expression. He wriggled as much as he could in his discomfort. 

“I see.” Loki said calmly before a small smile crept back to his face, a mere shadow of his usual smirks. “Well, you said the date was still mostly correct, so I suppose we’ll just have to continue with our evening and consider this the beginning of our courtship. Is that acceptable?” 

Tony’s mouth fell open. Well, he had to give one thing to the guy, he knew how to recover well. Tony would have expected to feel frustration or maybe even anger at that statement but all he could muster up was begrudging admiration and a spark of genuine interest in someone that couldn’t be figured out over the span of a single conversation. 

Maybe Tony really was crazy; was he actually considering voluntarily going through with this date? With the insane, if hot, alien who wanted the shiny cube currently tucked away in his super secret hiding place? Who had shown, up until now, that he could make Tony’s life very miserable, to the point of numerous civilian deaths to get it? Yep, Tony was as batshit as the not-God. SHIELD was going to eviscerate him. That’s what Tony needed to focus on: Loki bad, SHIELD good,…-ish. 

Then again, what better way to really dig into Loki’s motivations than over a meal? They’d learned jack-shit about Loki from his big brother. As much as Thor had claimed that his brother was ‘changed beyond recognition’, Tony got the impression that Thor had never really known his little bro that well. Then again, considering the stereotypes that the blonde, beefhead seemed to fit, Tony wasn’t entirely sure he possessed the braincells for such a task. This could be the break in stopping Loki that they had been looking for. No more only reacting to the situation like Captain Spanglypants seemed to think was their only option. But Tony couldn’t look too eager. 

“Who says that I want to begin some kind of courtship with you?” Tony countered. 

“Oh please, Stark. I’ve seen the way you look at me. And your proclivities are well documented.” Loki responded with a leer, seemingly back on comfortable footing. Good. 

“Maybe as an alien you can’t tell, but those proclivities are with women only. You are distinctly male.” Tony countered. A distinctly attractive male that was exactly Tony’s type when he was feeling that kind of thing. 

“True, that is all that you have allowed to become public knowledge. I have other sources.” 

That was interestingly correct. So Loki definitely had some help. The same guy that gave him the relationship advice? That wouldn’t follow since this information was actually true. 

“Ok, so you’re hot and I’m easy. But contrary to popular opinion I don’t just jump into bed with every hot bit of ass. I do have standards and evil murderers don’t make the cut.” Tony snarled. 

Tony expected either frustrated rage at being a misunderstood villain or that despairing gaze from before. He definitely hadn’t expected Loki’s smile to widen. 

“Pity. You can’t even imagine how hot jumping into my bed would be. I suppose I’ll just have to convince you otherwise.” 

And damn it if that confident smirk didn’t just do things to Tony. Stupid hot, kinky alien. Tony was so screwed, and not in the good way. Well, let’s be honest. He was probably going to be screwed in the good way too, but he wasn’t entirely sure it was going to be worth it. 

Tony instantly relaxed, settling into a game that he knew too well. Talking, flirting, getting to know the other person. He had known that Loki was smart, but didn’t quite realize the extent until they had really gotten into conversation. After Loki had released his arms, that was. Tony couldn’t talk very well without hand motions so that was pretty much a required conversation starter. From there, they had spent a good twenty minutes discussing the finer points of String Theory. 

Loki had laughed his ass off, and Tony steeled himself to counter the arguments against the fact that string theory posits a practically innumerable number of universes as he has many times, it turned out Loki was just fine with that aspect. In fact, he claimed to have visited several of those universes himself. And yes, Tony was going to be getting more information on that. No, Loki’s issue was that string theory grew out of particle physics which he believed to be fundamentally flawed at its roots. Which got them going about Loki’s magic and how it defied those laws of physics that Tony had taken for granted his whole life and so on. 

It was fun. Loki was funny. And he had even let Tony order his own food after Tony had explained some of the finer points of how a date was supposed to go. The next thing Tony knew they had been at the restaurant for three hours. The food was long gone but Tony had no intention of stopping any time soon. The idea of helping SHIELD was long gone from his mind. The memory of the awful things Loki had done faded into the background as he was enraptured by this shining beacon of interest in front of him. He couldn’t help it. The man in front of him was so utterly unlike the villain he had faced that they may as well have been different people. That alone should have set off warning bells; he should have been poking and prying into the why of it all, but he was just...happy. 

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” A female voice beside them asked with palpable distaste. 

Tony’s mind instantly flew through possible scenarios. Spurned lover? Not likely, most didn’t care any more than Tony if their flings lasted beyond a night. It certainly wasn’t Pepper, the voice was too low and she had kind of encouraged this, hadn’t she? A SHIELD agent was a pretty good guess. 

Tony hesitantly looked up to the woman who was currently standing beside their table. Yeah, he definitely couldn’t have anticipated this. She was pretty tall, dressed in space leathers of a similar style to Loki’s preferred garb. Her shaved head lent a martial air to the look. Oh, and she was half blue, half robot. Once those facts had been determined, it really shouldn’t have been a surprise that it was Loki that she was looking at disapprovingly. Shit, jealous ex-girlfriend? Double-shit, jealous current girlfriend? 

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Brother.” The woman said then. Tony let out a little breath of relief. He wasn’t going to think too much into just how relieved he was. Wait, Brother? This woman definitely couldn’t be related to Thor. Was this perhaps the adopted family Tony was now meeting? 

Tony turned to Loki, then, to see what his date thought of this change in events. Loki wasn’t looking at his sister, though. At least, he wasn’t looking at her face. Instead, with utmost horror, he was looking at her hand. Tony’s eyes were drawn to it as well and he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed before. Hovering above the metal digits was a swirl of black liquid that glowed with a deep red light and seemed to move independent of gravity or wind or any other natural force. 

Tony looked back at the faces of the two people who seemed to have forgotten he existed. Loki was now looking into the woman’s eyes, his face going blank in a way that made Tony shiver and want to take cover. The woman hadn’t noticed Tony at all, she was staring back at Loki with the most satisfied smile Tony had ever seen. This couldn’t be good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh! Hello Plot! Where have you been?


	12. Chapter Twelve

Nebula had the Reality Stone. How in all the realms had Nebula gotten the Reality Stone? Before he had the Tesseract? She had beaten him. For the first time, Loki had lost to her. Deep inside, Loki wanted to feel proud. He wanted the affection he felt for his little sister to be his strongest emotion in her moment of triumph. Instead, Loki was overwhelmed by the feeling of dread. It wasn’t jealousy, or not completely so, no, it was the knowledge that he had failed and he would pay. 

Nebula would take the Reality Stone back to Thanos, would present it to him and accept his accolades. Then she would regale their father with how Loki had been spending his valuable time courting a mortal. Loki looked over at Stark then, his heart clenching in his chest. The man was looking between the two of them, face sharp with analysis and suspicion. His plan failed, Nebula got the stone, so Stark’s use was done. Loki didn’t need him anymore. So why did the thought of sending him away ache so badly? 

Loki remembered when things had been simple. He fondly recalled a not too distant past when he had only one emotion at a time; when he had a plan, carried it out and succeeded; when every step was not fraught with uncertainty. But these visions had been filling him with doubt, about his past certainly, but more so about who he was. Everything he had been thinking, feeling, even just down to laughing with Stark was so unlike the person he thought he was that he didn’t even recognize himself. 

“It’s not often I can shock the words out of you, Loki.” Nebula said, surprising Loki out of his daze. 

“Yes, I must say, I hadn’t anticipated this.” Loki managed. 

“Of course you didn’t. You may play at fondness, but you’ve always underestimated me, just like Father, just like everyone else. But I have the Reality Stone. I’ve won. Just what do you say to that?” Nebula barked. 

“What’s the Reality Stone? What competition?” His mortal, no, not now, not ever that; Stark asked, always curious. Both Loki and Nebula ignored him. 

“Congratulations.” Loki managed, the words only slightly choked. “I’m proud of you.” 

Nebula scoffed. “Oh please, you want to stab me and rip the stone from my cold, dead hands.” 

“The thought had occurred to me.” Loki said lightly, suppressing a flinch as Stark’s attention turned back to him, shock and aversion clear on his face. 

“But I’m more clever than you give me credit for, Brother. I’ve already seen Thanos, already presented him with the stone.” Nebula closed her hand and the image of the Aether shimmered away. A hologram then, smart. 

“Clever.” Loki acknowledged. “Did you just come to gloat, then?” 

“We’re all being summoned back. A family meeting.” Nebula said. She wasn’t nearly as good at suppressing her emotions as Loki. The shudder at that statement was obvious. Despite her very much superior position at the moment, family meetings were never pleasant for any but Thanos. She shook off the discomfort quickly, though, grin coming back to her face. “I offered to get you myself. Couldn’t miss seeing the look on your face.” 

“I appreciate that.” Loki said, going for a fond smile and mostly succeeding. Nebula’s grin wavered uncertainly. 

“I needed to win,” She said finally, almost apologizing. It was entirely unnecessary, of course. As much as Loki was kicking himself over losing, he didn’t blame Nebula for winning. It was what they were all trained to do. He wouldn’t have apologized for beating her. 

“I know.” Loki said, then smiled, showing far too many teeth to look truly pleased. “And you did. I just have to pay the price.” 

“Ok, it’s time to stop ignoring the puny human. What’s going on Loki? What price?” Tony prodded, curiosity getting the better of him. 

“It’s none of your concern, Stark. It looks like our time together is at an end.” Loki said. You will never know how much I truly enjoyed it, he thought. 

“Wait, just like that? If you’re in trouble maybe I can help.” Tony offered, looking about as surprised at the words coming out of his mouth as Loki was. The man would never know what that meant to Loki. Then again, he also didn’t really mean it. 

“Will you give me the Tesseract?” Loki asked. 

“What? No!” Tony said, instantly. “I mean, even if I had it. Which, of course, I don’t.” 

Loki smiled, but his amusement at the poor lie was fleeting. 

“Then what good are you?” Loki said calmly. He couldn’t chance any suspicion that he actually cared about the hero. 

Tony’s face fell as his clever mind started putting the pieces together. “This was all just your plan for the Tesseract. Get close to me so that I’d lead you to it.” He said dully. 

“Which, based on your clear disappointment, likely would have succeeded.” But Loki suspected he would have ended up with something far more valuable than the Tesseract in the end. Pity he would never find out. 

“You…” Tony started, struggling for words for the first time since Loki had met him. “You asshole!” 

“Witty as ever, Stark.” Loki said dryly. “Why don’t you whine to someone who gives a damn?” 

With a wave of his hand, Stark was sent back to his tower. Loki let out a shaky breath that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. 

“Are you ok?” Nebula asked, perplexed by Loki’s obvious show of emotion. 

“I can’t say that I am looking forward to what is coming.” Loki replied, specifically vague. “But I will survive it. I always do.” 

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/ 

 

“Where the hell have you been, Tony?” Rhodey stormed into room all pissed and broody. 

“I’m fine, thanks for asking. How are you?” Tony asked before taking another large belt of his scotch. He really needed it. 

“Yeah, not funny. You just disappeared hours ago without a trace. Even JARVIS had no idea where you were. Then I get a call from him that you literally just appeared back in your tower. What the hell?” Rhodey asked, walking over to join Tony at the bar and taking the scotch bottle from Tony’s hand to pour himself a glass. 

“Rude. I was out. Technically, I was out on a ….” If the actual word ‘date’ got a little muffled when he took his next drink, so be it. He wasn’t technically lying. 

“A date!?! A date with who?” Rhodey asked. Shit, Tony had forgotten that he had learned Tony Drink Speak in college. 

“You know that crazy alien who kept cockblocking me with Pepper and then weirdly asked me to hit him the last few times?” Tony asked. 

“Yes…” Rhodey drew out, trepidation clear on his face. 

“Turns out that was foreplay.” Tony took another drink because if he didn’t he would laugh in his friend’s face. 

“Oh god, Tony.” Rhodey moaned, doing a literal facepalm. “Only you.” 

“What? I didn’t instigate it. And I technically got kidnapped...again.” Tony argued. 

“Yeah, but you still called it a date, meaning you enjoyed it.” Rhodey prodded. 

Tony chose to take another drink instead of answering the question. Which, let’s be honest, answered the question just fine. What was he supposed to say? Yes, he enjoyed it. It was the most fun he’d ever had on a date and it was just inevitable that it would subsequently crash and burn. Because why would anyone possibly be interested in Tony, for himself? You would think a lifetime of only being wanted for the Stark name would have taught him a lesson by now, but apparently not. 

No, Tony was not going to mope and pine about the crazy alien, and where he was now. He was not going to worry about that dread on Loki’s face when the blue girl had told him he had to go back and face his adopted father. Loki was fine. He was all magic-y and strong. Surely the guy who was powerful enough to get Loki away from Asgard and twist him into someone who didn’t remember anything of his former life, who killed and tortured for fun, wasn’t any sort of threat. Tony had to stop drinking for a moment. He closed his eyes and steadied himself on the bartop. He was not going to throw up. Loki didn’t give any actual fucks about him beyond the Tesseract, so Tony was just going to have to do the same. 

And hey, the competition, whatever it was, was done and Loki had lost, so maybe the threat to Earth was over? Maybe Tony would never see Loki ever again? SHIELD would take the Tesseract back, Thor would go back home and the Avengers would disband. Tony could get back to his real life. Why did none of that sound good? Why did the Loki part make his stomach dip far worse than the rest? 

Tony shook his head and finished his glass. When he looked back at his best friend, Rhodey was eyeing him carefully. 

“What? Do I have something on my face?” Tony asked, his hand hovering over the bottle in that endless debate of should I have another? What was he kidding? The answer was always yes. 

“What else is going on, Tony? You had a date, which at the very least wasn’t painful and Loki brought you back unharmed. So why do you look… I’m searching for a word better than haunted?” 

“Hey this isn’t like Afghanistan, ok? I’m fine.” Tony assured him. And he would be fine. Hell, it was one freaking date. There was no reason he shouldn’t be over it as quickly as he was into it. But no, that wasn’t quite right. Pepper had realized, of course she did. He had maybe not seen Loki in a particularly fond or romantic light before, but he had always been attracted and intrigued. He had loved having Loki’s attention almost entirely on him. Of course, if Captain America had the Tesseract, Loki would have just been making goo-goo eyes at him. It would have been no different to the Alien. Tony wasn’t any more than a means to an end. As soon as he accepted that, the better off he’d be. 

“Yeah, not buying it. Wanna try that one again?” Rhodey prodded. 

“Loki sent me back because we were interrupted. His sister came to bring Loki back home for a family meeting.” Tony said. 

“Ok, so your date was interrupted. Is this seriously just because of blue balls?” Rhodey asked. 

Tony snorted. “Don’t I wish. You should have seen the look on his face, Rhodey. That guy has stood up to all of us superpowered heroes teamed up against him including his literal God of a brother and just laughed in our faces. But he looked… damn it, he looked scared. I have a really bad feeling.” Yup, more scotch. 

“Isn’t something that’s bad for Loki, good for us? I mean, sure you may be attracted to the guy, but you can’t possibly want him to cause more trouble here? Or kill more people? Maybe this is the win we’ve been looking for.” 

“That’s just it. For some reason, I really don’t think it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... maybe don't yell at me too much? It is my birthday today... just saying...


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's what you all been waiting for... Thanos shows his ugly mug

Loki managed to contain his dread as he and Nebula transported to the Sanctuary. They were silent, Nebula in her victory and Loki in his defeat as they entered the throne room. Loki’s stiff steps loosened as they entered the room to see that they were the last to arrive, other than their dear father. 

All eyes on them, Loki strutted confidently into the center of the circle. Only Nebula would notice the change, but he was fairly confident she wouldn’t draw any attention to it. She had already won, he could be spared his small points of pride. Once he and Nebula had taken their places in the half circle framing Thanos’s throne, Loki took the time to peek at his brothers and sisters. He was pleased to see that other than Nebula, he looked the least fearful of any of them. Of course, internally he was quaking in his boots, but all that mattered was that he didn’t look it. 

“Nebula finally managed to wrest you away from your romantic entanglements?” Gamora asked as she noticed Loki eying her.

“Hmmm...were you perhaps spying on me rather than searching for the Soul Stone, Gamora? I don’t know how else you’d have that information. And I don’t see the stone in your hand.” 

“Distracted by romance? With a Terran? Pitiful.” Proxima Midnight cut in.

“It was a plan,” Loki snarled. “One that was just about to pay off. Our dear sister Nebula was just a bit too quick for me. I don’t see where you have room to snipe, I don’t see the Power Stone anywhere, and you had a partner.”

Loki nodded to Corvus Glaive who just sneered at him. 

“We should all be ashamed of ourselves failing our beloved father this way,” Ebony Maw intoned, in his usual sniveling manner. If any of them had truly drunk the kool-aid, to quote an amusing Midgardian turn of phrase he had learned from Barton, it was Ebony Maw. Yet he and Cull Obsidian ended up just as empty-handed as the rest of them. Loki suddenly had a strong memory of killing the SHIELD agent, relishing in the knowledge of the death adding to Thanos’s sense of balance. Maybe it wasn’t just Maw then, but now, he had far too many questions for blind faith. 

They continued sniping at one another until the sound of a heavy door opening and closing echoed through the vast room. The silence was tangible as they waited for their father to ascend to his throne. When he did, they all bowed in their various methods, some less groveling than others. Then they waited for the man in question to speak.

“Nebula has proven herself above you all by bringing me the second Infinity Stone needed for my destiny.” Thanos gestured to Nebula who walked forward, head held high to stand at their father’s right side. Despite the conflict in his heart, Loki burned to see his little sister in what he felt was his rightful place. 

Thanos sighed theatrically, “The rest of you have proven to be disappointments. But we don’t give up, we don’t accept failure as an end state. Instead, we improve, we work to make ourselves better, faster, stronger. You see just how well that turned out for Nebula. So, you know what that means...”

Loki’s stomach dropped. Yes, they knew exactly what that meant. Combat. Each of them pitted against another in a no holds barred fight. Loki looked up at Nebula, a slight bit of relief struggling through the despair. At least she wouldn’t have to fight. She was too often the loser in these battles, forced far more than the rest of them to be ‘improved’. Loki shrugged uncomfortably as Nebula met his gaze, her expression unreadable. 

But showmanship could be as important as strength in a fight like this, so without another word Loki took a step back and started stretching, looking for all the world as if he was merely readying himself for a light jog.

“Looks like Loki is ready, how about…. you, Gamora, you’ll be facing Loki.” Thanos ordered. 

Gamora grinned at him, toothy and vicious. Once again, Loki felt a complicated mix of emotions. Glee at being able to pound on the sibling he, inexplicably, disliked more than the rest and worry at facing Thanos’s oldest and most accomplished child. So, Loki stood in the center circle, put there for this very purpose, and faced his opponent. 

Thanos waved a hand and the fighting began. Gamora walked confidently towards Loki, sword raised. Loki countered her forward momentum by conjuring a dagger and tossing it into her side, forcing her to pause to yank it out. Unlike Odin, Thanos did not forbid Loki from using magic. It was a confusing comparison. For though he would be demanding answers soon for all of Thanos’s lies, it wasn’t as if he could say he actually preferred Odin. Then again, he did not have all his memories back, just flashes, but those hadn’t been promising. 

But Loki had noticed that while Thanos didn’t forbid magic, Loki’s fellow siblings, excluding Maw who also utilized it, tended to sneer at battles won through that means. It may have been pure stubborn ego, but Loki had come to rarely use magic in these little competitions except for conjuring weapons. It did mean that he had been beaten before when he might have succeeded otherwise. He had certainly paid the price for that. But he was still going to at the very least begin with pure combat alone.

Gamora recovered quickly and was on him, swinging her long blade. But Loki liked close quarters fighting; it was why he went for knives rather than the sword. Loki got in under her guard, punching and slicing while she couldn’t get the leverage with her sword. She managed to rear back and get a good kick in to Loki’s chest. Loki was forced to stumble back and, as he was off balance, Gamora slammed the butt of her sword into his head. Loki was faced with the annoyingly familiar sensation of the world going black. 

It could only have been a moment as something heavy was pressing down on Loki’s chest, keeping him from getting up to fight again. But as he opened his eyes, Loki found himself not on Thanos’s ship, but staring down a shimmering pathway to a circular building exploding with light. A figure was walking away from him wearing a very familiar red cape. Loki was absolutely overcome with feelings of rage and desperation. He fought to lift Mjolnir from his chest but knew that it was hopeless; he’d never be worthy. All he had at his disposal were his words, but Loki had always enjoyed wounding with those best. 

“Look at you, the mighty Thor. With all your strength, and what good does it do you now?” If Loki could just keep Thor at bay a little bit longer, he will have won. He could show his father that he was different. No worry of him joining the monsters when they didn’t even exist anymore. 

But then Thor did the unthinkable. He called Mjolnir to him and brought it down upon the bifrost. Loki panicked. He couldn’t possibly? He taunted, he cajoled, he said everything and anything that came to his mind to stop him, but as usual, his words fell on deaf ears. Grabbing Gungnir he ran at Thor, no thought in his mind other than stopping his brother. But just as he got within reach, Thor had broken through the bridge and the both of them were tossed into the air in the release of force. 

Loki felt himself falling into the void, terrified, but his fall was stopped by a tug on his arm. He looked up and Thor was holding onto Gugnir; Odin was holding on to Thor. Loki was awash in failure, in despair. 

“I could have done it, father. I could have done it, for you, for all of us.” He cried. He may not have succeeded, but the thought was there. That had to mean something to the man that Loki still claimed as a father, to the man Frigga insisted still loved him as such. 

“No, Loki.” Odin said, dispassionate censure was the only thing Loki could glean from him. 

It wasn’t enough. Nothing would ever be enough. 

So, Loki let go. He let go of his ambitions; he let go of his hope; he let go of his love; and he let go of the spear. 

He fell. 

Loki didn’t die as quickly as he had hoped. There was dizzying swirls of color. Then there was pure darkness, cold and silent, but still Loki did not die. Finally, Loki crashed to a hard surface with a crunch. He lay there for he knew not how long, not moving except to breathe, just waiting for death to take him. 

“Look at that,” A harsh grating voice whispered. “A lost little lamb of Asgard. Oh, we have many uses for you. Once you are properly broken in, of course.”

Loki came to at a fierce slap. He opened his eyes and looked into the black depths of Nebula’s. 

“Ow.”

“Yes, well, you are lucky it wasn’t far worse. That was pathetic.” Nebula sneered, but helped him up. 

Loki’s eyes found Gamora first. Her held was held high, but she looked uncertain. Loki was fairly confused his own self. Why hadn’t she killed him when she had the chance? Even if Thanos had stopped her, which seemed unlikely considering his pitiful performance, why had she not at least disabled him? 

And that memory…. The hopeless feeling washed over him again and he felt almost drowned in it. Was that truly how he had come to Thanos? Had he been broken? Loki looked over to the man in question regarding him neutrally. Loki glared at him, appraising the situation.

“Maw, you will fight Proxima. Loki, come with me. We need to determine a suitable punishment, and improvement.” Thanos stood and waved a hand, dismissing the others and Loki followed him out of the throne room. 

Once they were out of earshot, Thanos spoke in his low, rumbling voice.

“What happened, my son? You’ve never failed so spectacularly before.”

“Don’t call me your son,” Loki hissed. He had no father, no family, no one. 

“Such ingratitude. I rescued you, gave you a home, a family, when your own had failed you.”

“You lied! You’re no different than him. Whatever you did to me, it’s failing. I’m starting to remember. You didn’t rescue me when I was a child. You plucked me out of the void after I fell from Asgard. You just wanted to use me.” Loki yelled. But inwardly, he was more heartbroken than angry. He would never be wanted for anything more than how he could be used by those more powerful than he. “You traded one heartless bastard for another. You gave me a family that I hate more often than not because we are constantly pitted against one another.”

A thought struck him then. He hadn’t been with these people since childhood. If Thor was correct, it had only been little more than a year. “But of course, they’re in on it too. This whole set-up is a sham.”

“No,” Thanos said finally, when Loki had slumped and fallen silent. “They were convinced of things as you were. As you chose to be.”

“What?” Loki couldn’t deny that little flicker of happiness at the thought that at least Nebula hadn’t been lying to him.

“You asked for this. You asked to forget so that you could move on. So that you could help with my mission.” Thanos insisted. 

That didn’t sound right. Loki couldn’t imagine willingly giving all that up. When all he had was himself, his mind. But he also remembered that despair. When you had already been planning on death, what more could you lose? Loki wavered, for just a moment, before he thought again.

“Say that’s true. Did I also ask for this bloodlust? This sadism? This temper? I’ve seen enough of my past to know that I may have killed before but it was never like this. I never enjoyed it, sought it out.”

“You gave me leave to do whatever it took . You know how important my destiny is.”

Loki actually snorted at that. “Now I know you are lying. That I would never do.”

Thanos sighed. “No one wants to accept the hard truths. This would have been so much easier if you had just obeyed. But don’t worry. You’ll be properly persuaded.”

Thanos’s giant hand grabbed onto Loki’s arm and squeezed tightly enough that Loki’s legs collapsed under him. Another hand grabbed him from the other side and Loki looked over at the Other sneering at him. 

“May I play with my little toy again, Master?” The Other groveled. Loki felt like he might be sick.

“Why not? It’s not as if he’ll remember it.”


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... yeah that last chapter was rough. This one...

Tony didn’t even bother to stifle his yawn. The meeting was utterly pointless and everyone should know that. Rogers shot him a chiding look. Romanov just smirked, which, business as usual. Thor looked like he might have fallen asleep with his eyes open or he might have perfected the 1,000 yard stare, Tony wasn’t sure. Bruce was in the process of writing out some complicated equation on a pad of paper so he hadn’t even noticed. The man of the hour, Fury, scowled at him.

“I’m sorry, are we boring you? Is the security of the planet too low on your priority list?” Fury asked.

“Yes, yes you are. Also, no, but how is this meeting at all helping the security of the planet? We haven’t heard from Loki in weeks. He’s gone; he’s done. This whole thing is just security theater.”

At his brother’s name Thor startled, but he didn’t say anything, just frowned. He was doing that a lot lately. Tony couldn’t really blame him. It was just shy of a month since his and Loki’s little ‘date’ and there wasn’t a single sign of the guy. He had completely disappeared from the planet. Initially, Tony had been worried. But now? Now Tony could barely eat due his constantly roiling stomach. He had to drink himself unconscious whenever he felt like he needed to sleep, which wasn’t often lately.

It wasn’t that he was worried about Loki; Tony was almost certain that if he just kept telling himself that eventually it would be true. But he truly couldn’t fight the feeling that Loki’s disappearance meant something worse for Earth than Loki could have ever been. Unfortunately, Thor seemed to be the only one who agreed with him, or maybe the only one who wanted to agree with him.

“Yes, and you had absolutely nothing to do with that.” Fury said doubtfully.

“Hey, I told you everything.” Tony said, blatantly lying and not feeling the least bit guilty. He told Fury everything relevant.

“Sure…” Fury started as Agent Coulson walked in the room. Tony breathed a sigh of relief. That had seemed like it was going to be a long rant.

 “Sir, Agent Barton isn’t responding to attempts at communication.”

 “What?” Fury turned to Coulson. No complaints about interrupting, no questions, just waiting for answers. Interesting. They definitely had Tony’s attention.

 “He missed his check-in about eight hours ago and won’t answer his calls.” Coulson elaborated.

 “And why am I just hearing about this now instead of eight hours ago?” Fury demanded.

 “It’s Barton, sir.” Coulson said, as if that was enough of an answer. Apparently, it was because Fury just sighed.

 “Still think this isn’t about the security of the planet, Stark?” Fury asked then, turning to Tony.

 “Ugh, yeah, considering I don’t know the hell Agent Barton is.”

 Was it just him or did both Fury and Coulson look a tad guilty at that. Nah, couldn’t be.

 "Yes, sir, how does this have anything to do with us or Loki?” Rogers put in.

 Coulson and Fury had every person around the table’s attention now. Everyone looked confused except for Romanov. She looked pissed. It was the strongest emotion Tony had ever seen on her face. Yeah, this definitely wasn’t good.

 “Not long after Loki showed up and started targeting SHIELD, a job posting went up under discrete channels.” Fury started, sitting down again. “The details were vague, but it hit our radar due to the speech patterns implicit in the text. It matched the little we had from Loki and the more we had from Thor.”

 “What do you mean by that?” Thor asked.

 “He means you and Loki talk funny and it stands out.” Tony summarized bluntly. Thor frowned, but nodded for Fury to go on.

 “So, we developed an appropriate background for one of our Agents, Barton, and sent him to interview for the position.”

 “Excuse me, are you trying to convince me that you fooled Loki into thinking that Barton didn’t work for SHIELD? After Loki had already hacked into all your files? Well, all your files except the ones about me, of course.” Tony questioned.

 “I know this may be hard for you to grasp, Stark. But other people are capable of learning from their mistakes.” Fury responded, rising to Tony’s bait.

 “We scrubbed all files and references to Barton from any computerized data before we sent him out there.” Coulson explained, not rising to Tony’s bait per usual.

 Tony shrugged, not really having an argument to that. If Loki had some other way of checking in on SHIELD other than via computer files, they would have known about it because the Barton play wouldn’t have worked. Tony was assuming it did since they were just now bringing this up.

 “Loki took the bait, hired Barton.” Steve guessed.

 “You would put your own shield-brother at risk like that?” Thor asked. “After what he had done to another of your people?”

 Thor, for once, had an excellent point there. Tony wondered if Barton had really known what he was getting into on this particular mission. Loki could have just as easily hurt him as hired him.

 “Barton knew what he was signing up for. We needed the intelligence. It’s hard to predict someone who doesn’t even come from your own planet.” Fury responded, waving away the chance at harm. Fucker.

 “Barton was able to direct Loki’s attentions, pick specific times for him to attack and feed us when he was going to be making a move.” Coulson continued.

 “Wait, it’s Barton’s fault that my dates kept getting interrupted by Loki!?!” Tony cut in.

 “Really, Stark? Is that what’s important right now?” Romanov scoffed.

 “Damn straight. That asshole cost me Pepper.” Which would be bad enough. But on top of that it led to that date and annoying unwanted feelings…

 “But since then, Barton hasn’t been able to come up with much. Apparently, Loki’s plans went in a different direction that he wasn’t sharing with Barton.” Coulson provided reluctantly.

 That’s when it hit Tony. Loki’s other direction was trying to seduce Tony. Barton had to have been the one that Loki was going to for dating advice. While the guy was a troll on a level that Tony could only appreciate, he didn’t share the information with SHIELD. He kept it to himself. Why?

 “How did Barton say Loki treated him?” Tony asked. Fury and Coulson looked at each other in confusion before looking back at Tony. “Seriously! I mean, Loki thinks all humans are scum beneath his boot, right? Barton has had to be miserable working with the dude all this time.”

 Now Fury and Coulson looked uncomfortable; he was definitely onto something.

 “Agent Barton hasn’t had any issues with Loki. He says that Loki has been polite, respectful and…” Coulson trailed off as if considering whether he wanted to add any more information “...and he’s magically provided an unlimited amount of his ‘elixir of life’.”

 “Elixir of life? That is not a potion I am aware of.” Thor put in.

 “He means coffee.” Fury sighed. “Barton has a bit of a problem.”

 Tony laughed. “A man after my own heart. So Loki’s hired one of us puny humans that he hates so much, but he’s nice to the guy and gives him his favorite beverage of choice? Barton’s a SHIELD agent, you may not be my favorite people, but I know you aren’t easily fooled, I can’t imagine Barton is. Can’t you see that this is what Thor’s been saying? I’ve been saying? Something else is going on here. Loki isn’t what we’ve thought. There’s more at play.”

 “But what? Did Loki let anything slip during your ‘meeting’?” Rogers asked. Even the way he said meeting implied the quotation marks.

 “It’s something to do with his dad.” Thor practically growled at Tony’s statement. “I mean, his other adopted dad. But he’s been pretty mute on who that is. All his adopted sister said was that they were going to a family meeting. But Loki looked more like he was going to an execution. Loki looking for the Tesseract, that was all a part of some competition this guy started.”

 As Tony went on, a female agent walked in, whispered in Coulson’s ear and walked out. Coulson, unsurprisingly, did not react.

 “We’ll have to explore that at a later point. We’ve managed to track down Barton. He’s at an abandoned warehouse on the border with Jersey. We believe it must be Loki’s base of operations.” Coulson informed them.

 “You didn’t know where Barton was the whole time he was with Loki?” Steve asked, shocked.

 “No, his tracker hasn’t worked since he left for the interview, our guess is magic. He’s been staying there since. But he has been able to send periodic emails to his ‘sister’ that don’t appear to have been noticed.” Fury responded.

 “Ok, so he’s where he’s supposed to be, he just can’t email. I’m not sure where the issue is now that you know.”

 “We have men outside the warehouse now.” Coulson responded, turning to stare Tony in the eye with an uncomfortably intense look. “Barton just started screaming.”


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't wait any longer to post this chapter so hey! Two chapters in less than 24 hours!

Loki sighed. He couldn’t say it wasn’t satisfying, giving the betraying mortal his due, but there was this nagging feeling of something missing. Loki could still recall what it was like to enjoy this. He used to find it relaxing, pleasurable even. He recognized those feelings even as he existed in a state of detachment. But that was the cost of being improved. He had lost to Gamora in battle after losing to Nebula in the competition. So now Thanos had to make sure that he was capable of being even second best. He was merely a tool to be used to help his father meet his destiny and thus far, he had failed miserably at his purpose. 

Of course, part of the blame lay in trusting this petty human. His plan to seduce Stark for the stone might have succeeded if Barton hadn’t lied about their courtship rituals. Worse, as Loki had looked into Barton’s reasons for lying he had discovered that the man was actually working for SHIELD. He had lied every step of the way. So the man would pay, and Loki would move on to a new plan. One that didn’t rely on faulty council; something a little more straightforward. 

Really, going after Stark romantically had been a pathetic, cowardly way to obtain the Tesseract. The man was merely mortal. He wasn’t even enhanced like Romanov, Rogers or Banner. He was certainly nothing compared to the strength of that oaf that kept trying to convince Loki he was his brother. He was just a Terran in a metal suit. What Loki needed to do was surprise him without the suit. Killing him would be child’s play at that point. But first…

Loki turned his attention back to Barton, now that he’d allowed the man some time to recover. Ice had always been a particular talent of Loki’s and these humans seemed particularly susceptible. Black tipped the fingers of Barton’s left hand, blending to puffy red as it reached up to the palm. If Loki had any intention of letting Barton leave here alive, the man would never draw a bow again. It really made no difference to Loki, but to Barton? Oh he was suffering at the thought. Loki was fairly sure that the tears in his eyes were for that far more than the pain. 

“Loki, man,” Barton said, coughing a bit. “Please. I know I lied, I’m sorry, but I had to. You have to get that, right? It was nothing personal.”

“Personal? Why should I take it personal? I only paid you, and fed you, provided for you, kept you happy with never-ending amounts of that atrociously bitter beverage you enjoy. I only trusted you. No, I never took it personal.” Loki asked, eyes innocently wide. “And you should not take this personal.”

Loki’s lips curled into a smile that he could not feel as he jabbed a knife into the man’s right shoulder. When he pulled the knife out again, crimson flowed out a steady pace. 

“Ah, there we go. You were starting to look a bit monochromatic with all that pale skin and black fingers.” Loki gave Barton some time to appreciate the change as he cleaned the blood off his knife. 

“Yep, not taking this personal at all.” Barton actually managed to chuckle. Loki could almost admire the man. “See, I’m not taking it personal because I know this isn’t you.”

“What are you yammering about?”

“Come on, man. How much time have we spent together? Months? Sure, you’re an enigmatic alien. I don’t know the whole story, but I think I know you by now.”

“You know nothing.” Loki drawled, a spark of annoyance flaring. He almost wished it could kindle into something like anger, but cold was generally scarier.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m just a stupid little human who doesn’t know anything about magic or space or whatever.” Well, self-awareness is an admirable trait. But of course Barton had to keep speaking. “I definitely haven’t noticed all your headaches, your blackouts. I haven’t noticed how you’ve stopped preaching all the time about balance and your dad. I couldn’t possibly have noticed that little smile you get when you’re telling me about your interactions with Stark. Nope, not the ignorant little me over here.”

Headaches? Black outs? Smiles? Loki had no idea what the mortal was whining about. But, as he considered further, it did ring some sort of bell in his head. Some unclear memory. But it wasn’t worth thinking on further. He had tasks to accomplish. 

“I would say that if you knew what was good for you, you’d keep your mouth shut. But I think we both know that won’t make much of a difference.”

“Look, Loki, you’ve ruined me already. My hands, my shoulder… I’m worthless to SHIELD. I’m… I’m nothing. You’re just going to leave me like this, right?” Barton was looking up at him despairingly. 

It truly was clever. SHIELD taught their agents well. Barton was doing his very best to ensure that Loki would leave him alive. Appeal to their past camaraderie, try to tug on his heartstrings. Loki could appreciate the skill, but he certainly wasn’t falling for it. Then again, a little more psychological torture never hurt anyone. Well, never hurt anyone who lived to tell about it. 

“Oh, Barton. I wish I could, I really do…” Loki trailed off the words, trying to project sorrow, but as he could only dimly recall feeling the emotion he wasn’t sure he did it well. 

“Why can’t you?” Barton asked, falling right into Loki’s trap. 

“Brother! Stop this now!” 

Loki whirled at the voice and found himself face to face with the so-called ‘Avengers’. He was more than a little annoyed that they had managed to enter the room without him noticing. He had obviously been concentrating too hard on Barton. With Stark’s heavy suit there should have been no way that he hadn’t heard the man moving. 

“Hmmm… what is that phrase? Think of the devil and he appears?” Loki greeted them.

“I’m sorry, is Thor supposed to be the devil in this scenario? Because I’m pretty sure you’re the one straight up torturing people.” Stark responded, smirk firmly plastered on his uncovered face. 

“Not him,” Loki waved his hand at the over-muscled buffoon negligently. “You, Mr. Stark.”

Loki wasn’t sure what it was that he said that made Stark’s face twitch, but the smirk fell away and there was a frown forming on his brow. 

“What’s up with you?” Stark asked.

“Up is a two letter adjective describing a direction away from the center of gravity.” Loki responded quickly. 

Stark’s lips twitched in a reluctant grin. “Touche, but it’s lacking in your usual pizazz. What happened at your family meeting? You’re...different”

“Ah, yes. You are speaking of my father’s improvements.” 

“He’s not your father!” Thor shouted.

At the same time, the Captain asked “What improvements?”

As much as Loki enjoyed, or well used to enjoy, lying, there was no harm in telling the truth. In fact, based on what he knew about the Terrans, he would say that the truth would be fairly disturbing to their ears. But, of course, it wouldn’t be the whole truth. 

“You knew my failure to obtain the Tesseract caused me to be summoned back home. There my fellow siblings who had failed and I were set against one another in combat to determine who needed to be corrected to ensure future success. I was weak, wracked with all sorts of petty emotions, so my father fixed me.”

The woman, of course it was the woman, looked like she was going to be sick. “He removed your emotions? How?”

“He has great power, more than even an overgrown Asgardian could dream of.” Loki mocked.

“This isn’t...he’s gone psycho.” Barton coughed. Loki backhanded him thoughtlessly.

“So why come back? Why Barton?” Stark asked. 

Ah, yes. Here was where the lying came in. 

“You should know very well, Stark. He is the reason for my failure. He betrayed me from the beginning; reporting to SHIELD, giving false advice. He needed to be punished as I was.”

“So that’s the ONLY reason you’re back?” Stark asked. Which, Loki should have anticipated. The man, unfortunately, was not unintelligent.

“Why else would I be here? Did you think I was coming back for you? Did you actually think there was anything more to my overtures than strategy?” Loki asked. 

The man actually blushed. Interesting. Loki filed that away as a possible in for when he needed to get close. As Loki turned to Stark to press the man further there was a burst of pain behind his eyes and everything went black. 

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/

When Loki awoke, he was the one tied to a chair. He shook his head, trying to clear the fuzziness. It felt stuffed full. There was something nagging at him, something he needed to remember. There had been some reason why he wanted to be knocked out. But that was ridiculous, of course. He was no masochist; he certainly didn’t enjoy failing. But there were flashes of… something, in the back of his mind, all with a blue haze. 

“Back with us, Bourne?” Stark asked. 

Loki looked up to see that while his location had changed, he was still surrounded by the Avengers. Barton, who must have escaped his bonds and been the one to hit him, was nowhere to be seen.

“Bourne?” The captain asked. 

“Movie. Super spy-assassin dude that gets his memory wiped. It fits.” Stark told him lightly. 

“Fools. After I finished with Barton I would have left your world in peace.” Loki lied. “Now you are going to have to deal with the wrath of my father.”

“Yeah, yeah, Draco.” Stark said. He waved away a look from Thor. “Guys, I’m not going to stop and explain every single one of my nicknames, that would take all day. Let’s focus on the task at hand, shall we? Also, it’s completely ridiculous that I am the one saying that.”

“It doesn’t matter. We just need to keep him here for a while.” Romanov responded.

Oh, yes. Excellent thinking. Loki attempted to teleport out of the chains encircling him and was puzzled when he realized he couldn’t. He looked down and got a little queasy. There were runes etched on each one of the circles links. He didn’t understand them, but he could guess that it was some kind of Asgardian working meant to counter magic. His heart started pounding fiercely. He had absolutely no idea how he was going to get himself out of this.

“So, yeah. You may have noticed that you’re stuck here. Sorry about that, but we couldn’t let you go around torturing any more of our friends, well Natasha’s friend at least.” Stark said.

The woman in question glared at Loki.

“Fortunately, the Asgardians are not as lacking in power as you may think. We’re just waiting on her to arrive.” Thor responded, looking pleased with himself. 

Loki took the bait, what else could he do? “Who?”

“Asgard’s greatest sorceress.” Thor responded. “And my mother. Your mother.”


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FRIGGA!

Frigga, Queen of Asgard, Allmother and head sorceress of Asgard had never been to Midgard. She wouldn’t say that she had expected something different; honestly, she didn’t have enough context for expectations, but she was definitely perplexed. Yet the wife of Odin knew how to keep her mouth shut, so she gave no hint as to her state of mind as she stood next to her oldest son as he introduced her to the heroes of Midgard that he had been working with. 

First there was Captain America, a man outside of his own time, brought forward into a world that was likely almost as different to him as Midgard was to her. He seemed at peace with the people he was around, however. He had a surety that belied his young face and a strength of will that was obvious to any with even the most cursory eye.

Then there was the scientist, what they called their mages, of a sort. Dr. Bruce Banner was unassuming, distractingly so. Every movement seemed designed to make him smaller, less noticeable, always pulling into his core. But his core was something that Banner did not want to delve either. There was a rage, a disproportionate strength inside that Thor said manifested as a large, green berserker. 

The woman, Natasha Romanov, the spy, was interesting. Her sharp green eyes appeared to miss nothing. Her face showed none of her thoughts. She reminded Frigga of her youngest son so sharply that she needed to turn away. 

The businessman, Tony Stark, as he introduced himself with a wide grin and a cheeky wink was so disparate from the rest of those more suited to weapons than words. Though, from Thor’s description, he was well versed in the weapons of this world. But this man was not a warrior at heart, he was a thinker, a scientist like Banner. He had a darkness inside, not nearly so apparent as Banner’s, one that he tried to chase away with his blue heart, but still lurked in the shadows. The tower they stood in was Stark’s and he behaved as the most gracious of hosts, but Frigga knew that there was something unsettled in this business for Stark; he was far more anxious than the situation merited, more so than any of his comrades. 

The last of those gathered was a teammate of Romanov’s. He too worked for the organization known as SHIELD, who this little team of warriors reported to. Clint Barton was only just recently known to Thor. He had not been one of those fighting her younger son, but had in fact, spent most of his time working closely with Loki. 

Loki, the name still brought a pang whenever she let herself think it. So she didn’t, not often. But oh how she ached to see him again. He was just in the other room; she could practically feel his presence. It took every ounce of strength built in her not inconsiderable years to keep from running to him and gathering him in her arms. But if Thor was correct, and Frigga believed that to be so, the man in the other room was not quite her son. She shouldn’t have expected any differently, not after what Loki had been through, had done, but it was still a pain she couldn’t quite bear. 

So, Frigga turned her attention to a problem more easily solved, back to Barton. The man looked worse for wear. His right shoulder had been bandaged and was now cradled in a makeshift sling. His left hand showed the signs of severe frostbite. That didn’t even cover the various cuts and bruises all over his exposed skin. His lips were cracked and bleeding and there was significant bruising under one eye. 

“Before I turn my attention to my son, I believe there is a far more urgent matter. Mr. Barton, would you have any issues with my healing your injuries?”

The man looked at her with wide eyes, his face frozen as if he was too afraid to hope. “You can heal my shoulder? And my hand? Completely?” He croaked.

“Completely,” Frigga assured him and her eyes prickled at the relief so blatant on the man’s face. “Mr. Stark, is there someplace private that Mr. Barton and I can go?”

“Yeah, totally. I have the whole building, so there’s hundreds of places. But you probably want the empty guest room just down the hall and to the right.” Stark said, looking up from his handheld device with a distracted air.

Frigga thanked him and held out her hand for Barton to lead the way. When she turned to follow him, Thor immediately set to her back and started moving as well. Frigga turned and placed a hand on her son’s chest.

“Just myself and Mr. Barton, Thor.” Frigga said firmly.

“But, mother…” Thor started.

“I know, but it’s very important. Not just for your friend…” Frigga’s eyes darted toward where Loki was being kept quickly before turning back to Thor. Her son understood immediately, sighed and nodded. 

“Please take care of my mother, Barton.” Thor practically commanded. 

Frigga smiled just a bit at her son’s protectiveness. Mr. Barton frowned at him. Frigga guessed that the practice of not allowing females alone with unmarried men who were not members of their family was likely not practiced here on Midgard, if the man’s confusion was any indication. It was considered an outdated tradition on Asgard but one followed more closely when the royal family was visiting or being visited by outside peoples. One never really knew what to expect with strangers. 

Once Frigga and Barton had entered the unoccupied guest room Stark had indicated, Frigga motioned for Barton to sit on the corner of the bed. She drug over a chair to sit beside him and took his hand delicately. Barton trapped a hiss of pain behind his teeth, but it didn’t quite contain the sound. Frigga murmured her dismay. 

“I feel that I must apologize, Mr. Barton.” Frigga said as she held her hand over Barton’s, her magic starting to delve into the skin. 

“For what? You’re the one helping me.” Barton countered, voice still rough from pain. 

“On behalf of my son.” Frigga replied, curious how Barton was going to respond. 

“Oh, I’m…. fuck, I don’t know.” Clint sighed.Then looked stricken for a moment. “Ah, sorry. I’ll try not to curse too much, but, you know, habit.”

“I’m well aware of the behavior of warriors, Barton. I’m a queen, not a priestess.” Frigga said, with a smile to let Barton know she wasn’t offended. She realized that this was a very straight-forward man. She likely wouldn’t get what she was looking for by circling around the issue as was her usual method. 

“Do you not hate my son for what he did to you? He could not have anticipated that I would be here to heal you. He meant for you to be permanently wounded.” 

There was no doubt in her mind of that. Loki was a warrior of Asgard; he may never have taken to it like Thor, but he knew very well how to wound and what these would mean. The physical proof of just how far gone Loki was stood here before her. Loki had never enjoyed this, had never tortured before. He had killed in battle, when necessary, but it had always eaten at him.The man who could do this felt no guilt. According to what she had been told, he claimed to feel nothing. That was certainly not her little Loki, who felt so much, so deeply, even if he rarely showed it. 

“No, he didn’t.” Barton countered immediately, grinning slightly at Frigga’s frown of confusion. “He was never going to leave me alive.”

Frigga’s breath hitched a bit at the man’s casual tone. It was, of course, so much worse than she had even feared. How could Loki have changed so much in just one year? He had been hurt, broken even, but for that to lead to this?

“I suspect that this isn’t the first time you have been in such a situation.” Frigga said finally, not quite addressing the most telling portion of Barton’s statement.

Barton let out a loud bark of laughter at that, but none of the mirth reached his eyes. “No, and it probably won’t be the last either.”

“Still, that does not condone my son’s actions.” Frigga prompted

“Oh hell no. It sucked, but…” Barton trailed off again, looking out the window at the brightly lit skyline. 

“Yes?” Frigga prompted. 

“Look, I can’t say anything to Tash or Coulson because they’ll go straight to me being compromised and there’ll be psychologists and debriefings and… it would just be bad, ok?” Barton said reluctantly.

“You and I are alone here. I swear that I will not speak a word of this to any other, including Thor.” Frigga promised, eager to get to the heart of the matter.

“So, look, Loki’s not a good guy. I know that.” Clint started, then looked up nervously at Frigga’s reaction to that, perhaps just now remembering that he is speaking to Loki’s mother.

“Yes, I am aware of my son’s faults and that those have been perhaps deepened in his time away.” Frigga allowed.

“Uh, yeah. So, the thing is. I know he’s killed and all, shit who am I to judge that with what I‘ve done?  But, yeah, anyways, he was actually really fun to be around, you know? He had that great dry, gallows humor thing going on that I totally identify with. And yeah, the unlimited coffee was the coolest thing ever, but more than that, he wasn’t a dick to me, like at all. Hell, I’ve had SHIELD handlers that have treated me with less respect than Loki did. And there was this thing, with his shoulder? I don’t know if it’s recent or what but he’d like shrug weird when he was pissed or feeling uncomfortable or anxious. Old wound with an emotional backstory, I know it; I identify with it. I get the same thing with my wrist.” 

Barton appeared to realize that he had been trailing into the realm of blathering, but it didn’t even occur to Frigga to halt him. This was all valuable. She could use the information and Barton’s support in the future. He might just be able to help her save her son. 

“Honestly, I’ve been feeling a bit guilty about working against him for a while now, other than the fact that I was making sure that the damage was minimized and all.” Barton continued.  “Look, I don’t really know what Loki was like before all that shit went down in Asgard. Thor gave me the gist, but I felt like with all the time we spent together, I had a pretty good idea of how Loki was, ya know?” 

The man looked even more uncomfortable as he continued to speak. Frigga, in turn, was feeling more relieved by the moment. There was something of her boy in there somewhere. Enough for humor, for respect. If there was the tiniest spark, she had a chance. Then Barton spoke again and that hope washed away in a tide of despair.

“Then he disappeared; to some family meeting, Stark said. And that guy that came back? That wasn’t Loki. Yeah, it looks like him, but it’s…. I don’t know… it’s like someone scooped out all the personality and just left the crap behind. He said that his dad removed all his emotions, and seriously, that magic stuff is beyond me, but I buy it. There was nothing there; his eyes were just like ice, clear, nothing behind them. I’ve seen a lot of shit, I don’t scare easy. But I’m man enough to admit that I was fucking terrified.”

Ice, frostbite, it just kept coming back to that didn’t it? Frigga’s own blood felt frozen over in her veins. It was bad enough to face what her son had become a year ago, mad with grief and rage, but this… could she bring him back from this? Would he ever let her?

“Thank you, Mr. Barton.” 

“Eh, we’ve bonded. Call me Clint.” The man responded negligently, shrugging the shoulder she had just taken her hand off of.

“Thank you, Clint, for this. It’s very helpful.” Frigga smiled. 

Clint shrugged again, very obviously wanting to drop the entire conversation. “It can’t possibly be more helpful than you allowing me to be able to shoot again. I don’t know what I would have done. I hadn’t quite let myself think about it just yet. Really, thank you. Anything I can ever do for you, please just ask.”

“Anything?” Frigga asked, raising a brow. “You may come to regret that.”

“Oh god! You really are Loki’s mom, aren’t you?” Clint burst out. Then he immediately winced. “Oh, shit, sorry. Touchy subject, I guess.”

Frigga sighed. “Indeed. And one I will need to address sooner rather than later. Do you mind if we rejoin the others?”

“Nope, gotta show off the digits to Tasha anyways.” Clint smiled and in a rather impressively courtly gesture, waved his hand towards the door for Frigga to proceed him. 

Clint went immediately over to Ms. Romanov to indeed show off his lack of injuries. The tone of the group was much improved by Clint’s glee, but they were all still tense. 

“I believe that will be the easiest of the healing that I perform here. Now, if you would please Mr. Stark, show me to my son?”


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Loki was startled by the sound of the heavy door opening. They had left him alone in this dark room for hours now. Not that dark was really an issue, Loki saw better in it than most and there was absolutely nothing to see in this bare white room. But he was still bound to the annoyingly sturdy chair with the rune-carved chains. His eyesight was not so good that he could clearly discern the characters etched into the metal in the dark, so he supposed there was a reason for it. Not that the shapes meant much of anything to him, but at least it would have given him something to do, something to think on. 

Loki caught the barest glimpse of Stark, an unusually sober look on his face as he held open the door for a woman to enter. The door closed behind her and Loki and the woman were now alone in the artificially brightened room. 

She was an older woman, though her golden hair didn’t have an ounce of grey. The curly locks were pulled up into an intricate weave upon her head. She wore a blue gown with metal armor that appeared to be more ornamental than practical. She definitely was not of Earth. So this was Thor’s mother, the Queen of Asgard. The woman that they wanted him to believe was his own mother. 

While Thor tweaked the vaguest bit of familiarity to Loki, he couldn’t be sure that was just from all the battles here on Earth. The name of Odin, Thor’s father, conjured a stern face with only one eye, but again, that could be due to all of his research on Odin to retrieve the Tesseract. This woman, however, did not conjure the slightest bit of recognition. He felt absolutely nothing, which only solidified his knowledge. He should have some feeling, some nagging guilt or memory for the woman who raised him, right? Unless she wasn’t.

“Mother?” Loki asked, approximating a whimper, best he could. 

“Loki,” She breathed as if her most fervent prayers had been answered. 

She moved forward then, holding out her hands to embrace him the moment she got close enough. He waited until she was just shy of touching him before pulling back and glaring at her. She immediately halted; her hands fell to her sides. There was a moment where he could detect despair upon her face, before it was carefully blank. 

Loki sneered at her. “Nice try. So, who are you? Really?”

“I’m your mother, Frigga.” She said in the most certain, clear tone that for a moment Loki wanted to believe her. A fine quality for a queen, he acknowledged internally.

“You’re not.” Loki said. “I have no mother.”

“Indeed? Did you pop into existence fully formed? Were you kindled from a wildfire?”

“More like I formed from the ice of Jotunheim, hard and cold. The embodiment of that frozen rock and the terrible beings who inhabit it.”

“But… you can’t possibly… I thought you didn’t remember?” Frigga said, visibly startled now. 

It threw Loki off as well. He had just pulled Jotunheim out of the air. Continuing the amusing trend of lying about where he had come from. Then again, as he thought of it, he wasn’t entirely sure of the answer. Was it lying if you didn’t know the truth? Loki chased away those foolish thoughts. If he didn’t know, that was because he didn’t need to know. 

“Who remembers their own birth? I know who raised me and who I serve. That is enough.”

“Somewhere down the line, many centuries ago, you had a mother; surely you cannot deny that, at least?”

“Many centuries?” Loki sneered. “You ‘gods’ and your ridiculous fables.”

“You are 1,047. I remember very clearly all that millenia of time, as any mother should.”

Loki snorted. “A number; that’s supposed to convince me of your verity? A number I would have no way to verify? Please, send in your son. That dense oaf makes a far better argument than you, surprisingly enough.”

Frigga smiled then slightly, “You don’t even consider him your brother, but your pet name for him remains the same.”

“Spare me,” Loki scoffed. “This is all a waste of time. You won't convince me of anything. You won't change me. You stopped me from killing that betraying archer. Eventually, you’ll have to figure out something to do with me, but no matter what it is, it won't be making me your son.”

“Oh, I’m not trying to convince you of anything.” Frigga assured him.

That brought Loki up short. He had assumed that the presence of Thor’s mother was further efforts on his part to convince Loki of their fraternity. What other reason could there possibly be for the queen of Asgard to waste his time on him?

“If you aren’t trying to convince me that you are my mother, then why are you here? Why waste my time and yours?” Loki asked. That did get a bit of a reaction. Frigga’s face fell just the slightest bit; her shoulder’s losing their firm posture briefly in a slump. 

“My dear boy, I am so very sorry for this.” Frigga said as she moved closer. 

So this was it. He had finally convinced these people that he wasn’t who they wanted him to be, so now they were going to kill him. Frigga had her hands out as she was walking toward him again, but Loki now knew this was not to caress, but to kill. Academically, Loki wondered what magic she was going to use to end his life. Loki may not have the capacity to feel true fear, but he still had a sense of self-preservation. He didn’t want to die. At the very least, his death meant that Thanos had fewer tools for his quest. Loki couldn’t have that. His heart beat wildly and he struggled ineffectually against the chains until Frigga’s hands came to cup either side of his face.

Loki closed his eyes and waited for death. He steeled himself for the pain of it, but none came. Instead Frigga’s lips pressed against his hair in a soft gesture of affection so incongruent to the situation that discomfort welled up in Loki. It burst out in a laugh, not one of mirth or happiness, just a pure release of energy at the awkwardness of it all. 

“What was that?” Loki asked.

“That was because I am your mother and I love you.” Frigga said and Loki could practically see that emotion shining in her eyes. It caused an uneasy feeling deep in his stomach and he turned away from it. “And because this is going to hurt.”

Loki looked back at her then, surprised at the sudden turn.

Frigga must have correctly deduced his look because she quickly said. “Not physically, I believe. All I’m going to do is bring back your memories”

Mind control, that was her game. Well, Loki had seen what Thanos could do with the Mind Stone. Thanos had assured him and all his siblings that they were safe from any such endeavours. This woman couldn’t possibly be more powerful than that. The thought calmed Loki enough that he felt he could retort. 

“If such memories hurt as much as you say, why would I want them back?” 

“Because we are our memories. Who we are is merely a culmination of our experiences, the good and the bad. I want my son back, so in order to do that he needs to remember everything that happened to bring him here. Even the fact that he is not my blood.”

Loki had just long enough to wonder what she could possibly mean by that statement, when Frigga’s hands so delicately cupping his cheeks suddenly gripped him tight and his mind burst with color. The witch lied. It was amazingly painful. While it was not a wholly physical pain, in this unhinged chaos of color and sound, he couldn’t really tell the difference. Loki thought he screamed, but he wasn’t entirely sure. 

Loki wrestled against the bonds holding him, wrenching his always aching shoulder further in the process. But no matter his thrashing, those hands stayed cupped to the sides of his head. He was certain if he could just get them off this would all stop and he would be ok again. It was the last thought he had before the pain overtook him. 

 

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/

 

Loki came to with the thought that if he could go even a week without losing consciousness he would consider it a win. He chuckled at his own joke and then immediately winced as the movement made many injuries apparent. He did a bit of a mental review of his status and realized that chuckling just felt… odd. Like it was wrong somehow. 

He tried to bring a hand up to brush his hair from his eyes, but his arms were bound to his sides in rune-lined chains. His heart started beating frantically. Visions of a dark, barren rock and a hooded figure with grey skin made him sweat. But no, he was in a bare, but clean and well lit room. There was no nightmarish figure looming over him, but a woman standing in the corner, rubbing her hands together in front of her as he had seen so many times. 

“Mother?” Loki rasped immediately, before wincing. No, she wasn’t his mother. Frigga appeared to be thinking the same thing because she didn’t even react to his words. She was still as calm and composed as if they were sitting through a council meeting. 

But no, that wasn’t fair. Frigga had never denied herself as his mother. He, however, had used the word as a weapon against her before he really understood what it meant. Loki didn’t know how long ago that was now. Minutes? Hours? Days? His head was so full; intellectually, he knew that Frigga had broken through the barrier that separated him from his past, but everything was still fuzzy. He had to think on details first, pluck them out of the murk. But that was something he didn’t really want to do just now, not in front of his mother, at least.

“Loki?” Frigga asked after a moment.

“It worked. I remember.” Was all Loki could manage to say. And really, what more could he say? Could he really apologize? For everything? Did he want to? Could he bear to think on everything that he probably should apologize for?

“And?” Frigga prodded instead.

“And, would you mind leaving me alone to sort through my thoughts?” Loki asked finally. It would do no good to avoid them forever and he really did not want Frigga watching as he reacted to them. 

“Of course. I’ll just be outside the door.” Frigga said, turning to leave. 

“Do you think… could you take off the restraints?” Loki asked, fighting his desire to struggle against them, knowing it would do no good. His shoulder absolutely ached, pulled out of alignment as it was.

“Loki, I... “ Frigga started.

“Please?” Loki begged. “I swear to you that I will not leave. In any case, we both know you can ward the room against my skywalking.”

For the first time since he woke up, Frigga’s face softened out of the calm mask. She didn’t reply, just walked toward Loki. Her hands were deft and sure as they broke one of the links in a small flash of golden magic and she unwound the chain. Loki noticed that she didn’t even brush her skin against him; he tried to take it as consideration rather than distaste. He didn’t quite succeed.  

Once the chain was fully unraveled, Frigga stepped back, waiting to see how Loki would respond. He shrugged and moved his body around to loosen the muscles that had tightened from being held for so long. He didn’t try to get up, didn’t make any sudden movements to concern her. 

“Thank you,” Loki said. 

His mother’s own shoulders loosened just a bit at that. She smiled tightly and nodded before turning and knocking on the one door to the room. Once again, it was Stark who opened the door for her. His face was still sober, but this time he made eye contact with Loki, rather than avoiding him entirely. Loki had no idea how he appeared to the man that he had fought, had failed to seduce, but whatever it was, Stark’s face brightened just a bit before he closed the door. 

Loki frowned at the exchange before waving the thoughts away. Stark was tangential. What Loki needed to focus on what his memories, what had happened to him. Loki had no idea how long it had been since Thor’s coronation, but everything was a bit hazy after that point. He just needed a bit of time to sort through it all, develop a timeline. Possibly even a plan.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

Frigga walked out of the room and Tony was only a little surprised that Loki stayed inside. He didn’t say anything while Frigga waved her hands and some golden sparkles washed around the room. He wasn’t really sure what to say anyways. He suspected that whatever Thor’s mom had done, it worked. There was a look on Loki’s face, a young, heartbroken look that definitely made him think that the guy at the very least had his emotions back. 

Once she was done with the magic show, Frigga sighed and very gracefully fell onto the couch. Thor immediately sat down beside her and took her hand. 

“I’m fine, Thor. I just need some rest.” Frigga assured him, patting his hand with her free one.

“Was it that taxing?” Thor asked. Obviously, magic making his mom tired wasn’t something Thor was used to seeing. Then again, he had called her the greatest sorceress in Asgard so that would make sense. 

“The power that was used on him… it could only have been an Infinity Stone.” Frigga said. The way she said the words ‘Infinity Stone’ Tony’s brain supplied the capital letters. 

“What is an Infinity Stone?” Bruce asked, surprising Tony. Bruce wasn’t much for a lot of conversation if they weren’t talking about something sciency. But it didn’t surprise Tony that Bruce was as curious about magic as he was. They had a lot in common; well, their brains did at least, pretty much everything else was different. 

“Seconded,” Tony added in, because why not?

“Infinity Stones are objects of great power. Six of them were created long ago. Each stone is imbued with a fundamental element of the universe and it’s powers over that state are immeasurable. The one used on Loki, it was the Mind Stone.”

Mind stone, that was definitely a spooky thought. A little rock that had immense power over your mind? Tony actually shuddered at the implications. It definitely explained a lot though. Memory wipes and emotion draining were probably child’s play to a thing like that. 

“How were you able to stop it then?” Rogers asked. “I mean, excuse me ma’am, Thor said you were really powerful, but that seems…”

“Beyond me? Generally, yes. If I had to combat the Mind Stone directly, I would surely lose. But what had been done to Loki, it was messy, heavy handed. Whoever was wielding it did not understand the subtleties of the mind. And if there is anyone who knows Loki’s mind, it is his mother. The stone merely created a barrier between Loki and what that creature wanted him to forget, to not be able to access. All I needed to do was find a specific fault in that barrier and it crumbled.” Frigga explained. Then she paled for a moment. Thor leaned forward, muscles tensing as if he would fight away whatever had bothered his mother, but she just gave him a small smile. “It was… I hurt him. His screams…” 

She blinked rapidly a few times and the moisture that had started to pool in her eyes disbursed before forming into tears. 

“I didn’t hear any screaming.” Thor said softly.

“I cast a sound dampening spell over the room. Mostly because I didn’t want him to hear us discussing him out here.” She patted Thor’s hand again. “Consider yourself lucky.”

After what Tony felt was an appropriate amount of silence for the moment, he finally spoke up. “So, what now?”

“Tony!” Steve admonished. 

“What? We’re all just moping around here. But aren’t our jobs kind of done? SHIELD brought us together to fight Loki and now his mom fixed him up and he and Thor are going back to Godland, so… what do we do now?”

“Weren’t you the one trying to convince us that the being who had Loki was the real enemy?” Romanov asked. And yeah, Tony was kind of hoping to just forget about that. 

“Well, yeah, but if he has the uber powerful Mind Stone, what kind of chance do we stand against him? Without Loki, would he even care about little, old…” 

Sometimes Tony’s mouth moved far faster than his brain. It was actually really impressive considering how fast his brain worked. Unfortunately, it often drove other people insane when he would just drop off in the middle of a sentence as he worked something out and the words became unnecessary.

“What are you thinking, Stark?” Barton asked, speaking up for the first time. 

“The Tesseract is an Infinity Stone, isn’t it?” Tony asked Thor.

Thor looked over at Frigga who nodded to him. Thor nodded as he turned back to Tony. “Yes, it’s the Space Stone.”

Fuck.

“Damn,” Bruce said aloud. Tony snickered internally, but only internally because he wasn’t that much of an ass. 

“So it doesn’t matter that Loki’s been neutralized.” Steve said. Neutralized? That was not a particularly pleasant word. “Whoever sent him is just going to send someone else, or come here himself.”

“Yes, very likely. We cannot be sure how long it will take, but he obviously has intentions on collecting the Stones.” Frigga agreed.

At that everyone seemed to go into their own thoughts. The silence was very sober and very annoying. Tony could only take it for so long.

“Why all the long faces? We’ve got the inside scoop! All we need is for Loki to give us the deets on the uber bad, we figure out how to stop him and boom, planet saved. Mission accomplished.” Really, they could do a hell of a lot worse than someone as smart and tricky as Loki on their side. 

“Unfortunately, Stark, Loki’s cooperation is not necessarily assured.” Thor said carefully.

“Why not?” Romanov asked suspiciously.

“How much has Thor told you of the circumstances of Loki leaving Asgard?” Frigga asked.

“Not much.” Steve said. “Loki was jealous that Thor was being crowned king. He’s looking for more power to get back at him. Oh, and Loki’s adopted.”

Tony couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the look Frigga gave Thor. It was quite obvious that she thought Thor’s given information was a bit lacking. 

“Yes, well, as that is all technically correct, there is a bit more to it.”

So Frigga talked. It was like some kind of greek tragedy. Battles and enemies and not knowing where you came from, killing your own father, betraying your brother. It was seriously batshit and not for the first time, or the last most likely, Tony just felt… incredibly bad for Loki. It sounded like everything had mostly been stacked against him from the start. 

“I can’t begin to guess at my son’s current mental state with everything that has happened even since,” Frigga summed up. “But, it is likely that there will be some lingering resentments.”

“You think?!” Tony burst out. 

Both Frigga and Thor winced at that and Tony felt a little bad. He found himself making eye contact with Bruce, who looked even more uncomfortable than usual. Bruce just shrugged, but Tony thought he could get him on board. Romanov looked suspicious and analyzing as per usual. Clint looked sad. Actually, that was really good. Sad they could use. Clint had more reason than anyone to be mad as hell, but there was obviously more to the situation than they knew. Yeah, Tony was pretty sure Clint was in. Steve, well, Steve definitely looked empathetic, but that was what he was good at. Yeah, all Tony needed was to have Loki give Steve the big doe eyes and the guy would be eating out of their hands too.

That’s when it struck Tony what exactly he was doing. He was analyzing all of this as if he and Loki were on a team. He had heard Loki’s story and immediately started planning out how he would help the guy and make sure that he wasn’t shafted; immediately pitting himself against Thor and Frigga if necessary. Tony wasn’t sure he was ok with that. Well, at least it was a whole lot more excusable now that Loki was far more of a victim. I mean, really, a guy who just tried to kill himself gets taken in by some all powerful space baddy? Not exactly responsible for their actions, even beyond all that magic-y Mind Stone stuff. 

But what had happened before all that? The treason, betraying his brother, the regicide, patricide, attempted fratricide and genocide. Yep, Loki had pretty successfully cleared the -cide bingo card. Tony couldn’t exactly quibble; he had a good amount of blood on his hands too.  Tony was going with temporary insanity. It worked here, why not Asgard? Yeah, he was pretty sure he could get his lawyers on board with that. Then again, it might actually be good to get the story from the horse’s mouth, as it were. The question was, would anyone let him in close? 

“I need to see Loki. We need to make sure that he will give us the information we need. I must talk to my brother.” Thor seemed determined, clenching his fists and getting up. He wasn’t mad, but he was definitely hard set. 

Frigga just put a hand lightly on that giant bicep. “I don’t think that would be a good idea right now.”

“But… he’s my little brother.” Thor looked at his mom then, and for the first time since Thor first showed up, he could see the big guy allowing himself to feel all those annoying feels that had likely been bottled up this whole time. Tony definitely got that. They were super distracting. 

“I know, Thor. He’s my son, but I don’t think we are who he needs to be around right now. There’s too much. It will just overwhelm him and push him farther from us. Stark,” Frigga said, turning to Tony. It pulled him out of his thoughts. “Would you go to Loki? Maybe take him to get a change of clothing?”

“Me? Seriously? Queenie, I know you don’t know me, but let me give you a little heads-up about Tony Stark. I am the last person you want to put in a room with an emotionally unstable guy. Really, I’ll just make it worse. I’ll be a little shit, he’ll kill me and then you’ll be back to square one.” Tony’s mouth immediately supplied all of the reasons why he shouldn’t get what he was just angling to do. It was really contrary that way; so annoying. 

“I’d do it, but I don’t think he’ll be up to seeing me just yet.” Clint put in. “Actually, Stark, I think you’re the right guy. Loki really likes you, and he’s pretty much a little shit too.”

“No, he doesn’t; that was the plan to get the Tesseract. Which to be fair, probably would have worked, but he was just pretending.” Tony protested. 

Barton just smiled knowingly at him. Tony looked back at the queen and she had practically the same superior smile. Shit. Did Loki actually like him? That was… well Tony wasn’t really sure, but it wasn’t bad, right?

“Ok, but if I die, I’m haunting you first Barton.”


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting, I was enjoying our local con here in Phoenix and having a blast! But I return with a really good chapter... Tony and Loki alone time!

It was rather the perfect time when the door opened. Loki had done all the delving he could stand at the moment and really needed to take his mind off of the ugliness that he had waded through. He still tensed, however, wondering who was entering the room. 

He wasn’t sure he could face Frigga just yet; he definitely was not prepared to see Thor. Seeing Barton, that might just destroy him. But it was none of them; it was Stark. Loki’s lips immediately wanted to curl into a smile at seeing that face again, but he fought the impulse. He had destroyed any amount of goodwill he had managed to build during their date when he lied about his intentions, well half-lied anyways. Then everything with Barton... and what he said? No, Stark would not be nearly as pleased to see Loki as Loki was to see him. Which, of course, made Loki wonder what his purpose was here. 

“Uh… hi.” Stark said awkwardly, closing the door behind him. There was nothing else to sit on other than the chair Loki was currently in. Loki thought about standing up and offering it, but his back still ached fiercely, and he was sure that Stark would refuse anyways. So the man just stood there, fidgeting, rocking his hands back and forth and clenching them together in odd patterns that were almost hypnotising.

“Hello,” Loki said, realizing that the man was probably waiting for him to respond. 

“Honestly, based on what I’ve heard out there, I feel like I almost have to introduce myself. Like, we haven’t really met, you know?” 

No, Loki didn’t know. “Did Frigga not tell you that she returned my memories? I remember all our interactions, Stark. I know who you are.”

Stark smiled then, a bright genuine one, like on their date. “Yeah, you really do, huh? But, I’m not sure I really know you, or all of you at least. You were kind of not yourself, right?”

“No, I have not been myself for a very long time.” Loki admitted. Unfortunately, the blame could not entirely be laid upon Thanos. He had gone a bit mad even before that. Maybe even more than a bit...

“All the shit you went through? The adopted thing? The whole other species thing? Then everything since Asgard that no one really knows but we can all guess was not fun? Yeah, you kind of have an excuse.”

It was a sweet gesture, but Loki suspected that would not be a valid enough argument when he was tried on Asgard. Asgard. The word should mean home, but all Loki could currently conjure was dread. Maybe with the barest bit of nostalgia. It would never be the same. Even if by some miracle Loki wasn’t executed for treason, among the many other crimes he committed, he didn’t have a home anymore, didn’t have a family. He was just lost. How much better it would have been if he could have just perished in the void. 

Forgetting Stark’s presence entirely, Loki dropped his head into his hands and started weeping. It was absurd, pathetic even. He hadn’t cried, really sobbed, like this since he was a child; but even as his mind rebelled against it, he couldn’t stop. It honestly seemed like the most reasonable thing to do under the circumstances. 

Loki lost himself in the emotional outlet until he felt a tentative hand touch his back. He remembered, then, that he wasn’t alone and he wanted to cry all over again in humiliation. As if Stark didn’t have a bad enough perception of him. But even the embarrassment couldn’t stop the flood of tears. 

When the hand wasn’t rejected, Stark moved and put his full palm on Loki’s lower back and started rubbing. Loki could feel the man get closer to get more comfortable and his other hand was on Loki’s good shoulder, thumb rubbing small circles. Then Stark did the most baffling thing of all, he started humming. Loki didn’t recognize the tune, of course, but the comforting reminded him so much of his mother that the tears increased once again. That seemed to catch Stark off guard; his hands paused along his his humming, and he even started to pull away. Practically without his consent, Loki’s hand shot out to keep Stark’s there. Loki couldn’t make himself look up at the man, but the rubbing and humming commenced again. 

It wasn’t long before Loki had cried himself out, but it took a long while for him to be able to raise his head and look the human in the eyes. Stark’s face wasn’t happy necessarily, but it was soft, content even. There were no negative emotions that Loki could detect, and he was unreasonably pleased. 

“What do you say to getting you out of this room and into some new clothes?” Stark asked, not addressing the embarrassing situation at all, to Loki’s delight. 

“Yes, that would be much appreciated. Thank you, Stark.” Loki said, knowing that Stark would know that the thank you was for more than just the offer of clothing.

“Hows about you call me Tony? We’re not enemies anymore, right?”

Loki wrinkled his nose. Tony. It was a ridiculous word. He wasn’t sure he could call a man that he had so much affection and respect for by such a small name. 

“No, I cannot call you Tony.” Loki said. “Anthony.” 

“Ugh, only my mom called me Anthony and that was only when I disappointed her.” Anthony paused thoughtfully. “She called me Anthony most of the time, actually, now that I think about it. But I’ll still take that over ‘Stark’, I suppose.”

Stark… no, Anthony opened the door for him and Loki peeked out tentatively. There was a sitting room outside, but it was completely empty. Wherever the rest of Anthony’s team and his mother had been, they weren’t here at the least. Loki sighed in relief and exited the room, waiting for Anthony to close the door behind him and lead him to the elevator. They must have been very close to the ground level if not below it, because Anthony pressed the penthouse button and as fast as the elevator was, it took them quite a while to get to the top. 

When the elevator door opened with a ping, Loki recognized the floor that he woke up on the first time that he saw Thor here on Earth. Remembering how his erstwhile brother reacted then was actually a bit amusing now. Thor was so flustered; he had absolutely no idea what he was getting into. Anthony breezed by the living area and headed into a bedroom. 

Inside was one of the largest beds Loki had ever seen. And considering he was a prince and had stayed in some of the finest guest suites in the nine realms, that was saying something. 

“Do you regularly have orgies or something?” Loki asked before he could think better of it. He wanted to clap his hand over his mouth in embarrassment, but he was sure that would make the whole thing even worse. 

Anthony just smirked. “Define regularly…” He said with a leering wiggle of his eyebrows. Loki snorted which just made Anthony grin. 

The man disappeared into a closet that only didn’t seem ridiculously large because of the bed. He came out with an armful of soft-looking clothing.

“You’re way taller and skinnier than me, so these aren’t exactly going to fit like that extremely tailored leather getup you got going on there, but they’re big on me and comfy and I feel like comfort should be the order of the day.” Anthony passed over the clothing and Loki accepted them gratefully. Comfortable would be a gift right now. 

“Is there another room I can go into to change?” 

“No, uh… sorry. I kinda have to keep you in sight.” Anthony looked uncomfortable again, which made Loki feel bad for asking the question. 

“Did Frigga require that?”

“No, Fury, actually.” The hero said, citing the man in charge of SHIELD, which Loki remembered from his hacking. 

“That’s wise. Though, I do not know how effective you’d be at stopping me without your armor. I could kill you in seconds.” Loki didn’t know why his back was suddenly up; why he was suddenly instigating conflict. But Anthony’s sudden discomfort had only intensified and it was making Loki anxious. 

“Yeah, but you won't.”

“Sentiment,” Loki snorted. “You’re all so irrational. It wasn’t even half a day that I would have killed you without a second thought, without a moment of regret.”

“Sure, and now you won’t.” Anthony said firmly.

Loki rolled his eyes and turned from Stark then. He didn’t want to continue this line. He could only lose. 

Loki started to remove the blood spattered armor. The sight of blood on his clothing was not necessarily a common sight for him, but he had seen it often enough. It had never made him ill before, as some people seemed to get. This sight made him nauseous now. It reminded him of what he did to Barton, what he did to a lot of people. Worse, he remembered how much he had enjoyed it. He pushed the thoughts away and had to keep himself from practically tearing the clothing off. He just wanted to be rid of it, all of it. 

“How is Barton?” Loki asked finally while removing his boots, steeling himself for the worst. 

“Great!” Anthony answered and Loki looked back at him in shock. “No really. Your mom made him good as new.”

“She’s not my mother. I thought you were told my whole story.” Loki snarled, still looking down. Why did he have to keep picking fights? He was relieved that Barton was ok, happy even. But here he was snarling like a mountain cat over the smallest things. 

“Yeah, I mean, sure she didn’t actually give birth to you, but she raised you, right? Loved you, took care of you, healed you when you were sick, soothed you when you were sad, the whole nine yards?” Anthony asked. 

“I’m not an idiot, Stark. I know what you meant. You just don’t understand.” 

“You’re absolutely right. I don’t. God, there were days, hell years even that I would have killed to be adopted. Sure, I’d always be related to Howard Stark, but to at least be raised by someone who I knew loved me for me? Wanted me not just for what I could do for them? Heaven.” Anthony said. 

Loki focused on getting his bloodied leathers off, rather than answering the man. He really didn’t want to admit, out loud, that Stark had a point, at least when it came to Frigga. He was certain that she loved him for him, didn’t have ulterior motives. Odin was another story entirely. 

Once he was finally free of the heavy garments, Loki started looking around for where he had set down Stark’s clothes.

“What the…? Shit...” Anthony gasped behind him. Loki whirled around confused for a moment until he saw where the mortal’s eyes were directed. 

“Ah,” Loki smiled bitterly. “Yes, Thanos’s ‘improvements’ weren’t all mental.”

Loki moved his left shoulder around, showing the metal joint off just a bit. It really was a beautiful piece of technology. At least, it would be if it wasn’t something you had involuntarily pieced onto your body. 

It had been an agonizing process. They cut off his arm, ripped his entire shoulder joint out to replace it with the mechanical version, then reattached the rest of the arm. Loki remembered remembering that it was done after he lost a battle to Gamora; his arm had been wrenched from the socket and so that had turned into his punishment. 

But he remembered the true memory, which was that it was done during one of his many breaking sessions with the Other. They had just wanted to tear his arm off, to cause him as much pain as he could bear, and then some; so they did this to add to the story. Loki sighed, all these false memories on top of real ones were making his head hurt.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to apologize, I have no Lokitty yet and have no idea when it will be posted next. This next chapter is giving me kittens... (that's a terrible pun! Bad Whitney!)
> 
> Until then we have lots of alternative Loki & Tony angst for you all! Enjoy!

See? This was why Tony was not the guy you sent to do delicate, emotional shit. Tony practically saw the shocked, insensitive words coming out of his mouth like a cartoon bubble as soon as he caught sight of that flash of metal. He wanted to grab them and shove them back in, but it was too late. 

Loki’s bitter smile was pretty darn familiar. He moved that silver-hued shoulder and Tony’s fingers practically itched to start figuring it out. He wondered how Loki could still move his arm when the metal stood between his spinal column and the nerves in his hand. If he could move it, he could feel with it right? It made Tony sick to think of Loki’s actual arm like a prosthetic, dead to all feeling but still able to move. He really hoped that wasn’t the case. 

The bitter smile was fading from Loki’s face, melding into something distant and Tony could tell his attention was drawing inward, reliving memories. That probably wasn’t a good plan, especially not for something like this. So, Tony sighed and took a leap, ignoring how his heart immediately started pounding with what he was about to do. Slowly, but deliberately, he grabbed the bottom of his shirt to pull it off, displaying the arc reactor in all its technological glory. 

“Pretty, huh? Handy, useful... powerful even. Keeps me alive, too. I still wish it wasn’t there most days.” Tony said. That was putting it mildly, but Loki’s breath caught and Tony sensed that he had probably thought the same about his shoulder a time or two. There were probably advantages to it, based on the term ‘improvements’ it couldn’t be all bad, but that didn’t change the facts. 

“What happened?” Loki asked softly. Loki held out a hand briefly as if he wanted to touch the reactor, but pulled it back before he made contact. Tony couldn’t help a bit of smugness at the fact that he’d managed to keep this information from all of Loki’s very accomplished digging. 

So Tony told Loki about what happened in Afghanistan and afterwards. Loki listened, nodded at the appropriate intervals, all that jazz, but he was quiet, contemplative. When Tony finished, there was an awkward tense silence.

“I’m sorry.” Loki said finally. 

“Yeah, me too.” Tony said. 

“I should… I should probably get dressed.” Loki said uncomfortably. It was only then that Tony realized that they were both shirtless. 

Tony chuckled awkwardly and looked the other way, tugging his own shirt back on. His eyesight moved naturally to the bed. Then he thought of his ulterior motive for bringing Loki into his bedroom instead of some guest room. Very different from his usual ulterior motives for bringing people into his bedroom. Not that Loki wasn’t attractive, he was a lot more toned than Tony had expected under all that leather… yeah, this was not the time. 

Tony’s stomach roiled with nervousness. He needed to be sure. Frigga and Clint had both hinted that Loki cared beyond just getting the Tesseract, but Loki just using him seemed far more likely than the alternative. Then again, this was definitely a slightly different Loki than the one he had been working with. If Tony was going to put his horse in the ring behind Loki, help him out on Asgard and beyond, he needed to be certain.

“So, Loki…” Tony started when Loki was finally dressed and fidgeting when he had nothing else to accomplish with his hands. “You did the seduction thing. Wheedled your way into my bedroom according to your plan. What was the next step?”

Loki winced. “Anthony, I’m truly sorry about that. If I had been myself I never would have toyed with you in that way. Getting the Tesseract, that was all Thanos, not me.”

“So, the fact that you’re here in my bedroom, with the Tesseract right at hand, that means absolutely nothing to you?” Tony asked. Seduction, power or neither? That was the question.

Loki frowned, looking around as if Tony would just leave something that powerful on the nightstand. “Anthony, I swear to you, the Tesseract means nothing to me, beyond keeping it from Thanos, at this point.”

Well that didn’t confirm any sexy feelings, but didn’t deny them either. No, Loki’s focus seemed to still be on the Tesseract.

“JARVIS, open up my super secret hidey hole.” Tony said.

“Are you sure that’s wise, sir?” JARVIS asked.

“Nope, but do it anyways.”

The bed suddenly tilted as the legs at the foot swung away from the two men, revealing a metal compartment buried into the floor. Tony tapped in the code, opened the hatch and hauled out SHIELD’s briefcase. 

From the look on Loki’s face, Tony could guess that he probably felt the power of the Tesseract in some way. Tony definitely couldn’t feel a thing. 

“It’s right here.” Tony said, waving the case a little. “I can’t get the suitcase open yet, but I’m betting you could. I’ve got no suit on me, just a poor defenseless little mortal here. You could take the case and run. Whether you killed me or not, I couldn’t stop you.”

It was the truth, but Tony was banking on Loki not wanting to deal with Frigga and Thor at the very least. He did have some sense of self-preservation; he wouldn’t have done this if he  _ actually _ thought Loki was going to kill him. Or if, you know, the chance was more than like 10%... 15% tops. 

The next few seconds were some of the most tense of Tony’s life, which was saying something. Loki’s face ranged from surprise, to fascination, to horror, to something that looked like purpose. Loki walked forward and grabbed the suitcase from Tony’s hand. Tony had a brief flash of despair before Loki promptly deposited the case back into the compartment and slammed the hatch.

“I don’t know if you are an idiot or just that arrogant to keep an Infinity Stone under your bed... of all the ridiculous things. The danger you could have put yourself in! But at the very least whatever the compartment is made of is hiding the signature so for now, keep it in there. And don’t show it to anyone! Especially not someone who you couldn’t possibly trust! Of all the…”

Tony didn’t let Loki finish. The relief, the absolute glee at Loki’s reaction bubbled up inside until he felt absolutely light-headed with it. He needed to do something with the energy and it manifested into grabbing the collar of Loki’s shirt and kissing him fiercely. 

There was a brief awkward moment where Loki was still trying to talk so the lips didn’t fall just right. Then Loki froze in surprise. Finally, Loki slotted his lips accordingly and stepped into the kiss until they were pressed up against one another. Tony just kept it at the press of lips, though. This was already ridiculously inappropriate with everything that had happened. He was lucky as hell that Loki responded as he did rather than hauling off and decking him. After a few other soft pecks, Tony pulled back. 

“You are very puzzling.” Loki said, frowning slightly, but the corners of his mouth were tilted up in amusement. 

“You aren’t the first person to say that and you definitely won’t be the last.” Tony collapsed on the bed, relishing in this moment of contentment. That was really good. Confirmation of trust, definitely confirmation of at least some measure of feels. Yeah, Tony wanted to do that kissing thing again as soon as possible. 

“Was this a test?” Loki asked then.

That brought Tony out of his peaceful daze quick. Shit. Was Loki offended? Yeah, why wouldn’t he be?

“Uh… sort of? I mean. I know that you were under the whammy and all, but with everything that happened before that…” Tony trailed off there, not really wanting to detail his thought process.

“It was completely logical. Even before Thanos I wasn’t exactly working toward the greater good.” Loki said rationally. Tony sighed in relief. Yeah, Loki might just be perfect. “But I thought I was. Working for the greater good, I mean. I’m not going to lie and say that I wasn’t angry, wasn’t jealous, wasn’t… a lot of things. But I truly didn’t want the throne; it wasn’t a coup. I really did just want to teach Thor a lesson; everything just sort of spiraled out of control from there.” Loki was looking down, picking at his left palm.

This was good. Loki definitely sounded like he was pretty reasonably in control of his own faculties at this point and he didn’t seem like he was out for revenge or destruction or anything. The Avengers could definitely work with this. 

“And your family? Your adopted family? How are you doing with that?” Tony asked carefully. 

Loki thought it over, going quiet and inward before finally shrugging. “I’m not sure. I still feel betrayed by Odin. He said he was just trying to protect me from the truth, but he made me feel other and not good enough my entire life. At least if I had known the truth, it would have given me a reason why. Frigga lied as much as Odin, but, it was like you said. I never felt unloved or unwanted by her.  Thor never knew the lie, but he was half the problem. I may have tempted him, but it was his personality flaws that got him banished, not me.”

Loki was getting more worked up as he talked and Tony held up his hands, trying to make calming noises. 

“Hey, I get it. I do. I know Thor. And if he’s who they glorify on Asgard, it doesn’t take a leap of logic to think that you wouldn’t come out so great in comparison.” Tony said.

Rather than being soothed at Tony’s words of solidarity, Loki’s face crumpled. A quick mental review of what he had just said had Tony face palming. See previous notes on how much he royally sucked at this.

“Yes, you are like the opposite of Thor, but I don’t mean that in a bad way in the slightest. You think with your brain, rather than your muscles. You have a dry, clever sense of humor. And then there’s the fact that you are the very definition of tall, dark and handsome. Really, that’s a thing here, a really desirable thing. And I’ll definitely take these slim, toned muscles over Thor’s bulky ones. So when I say that you don’t compare to Thor, I’m basically saying Asgardians are idiots because you’re just…”

Loki kissed him then. Which was really great because Tony was pretty sure he was just going to keep babbling and it probably just would have gone downhill from there. This kiss was far more heated than the first, building until Tony felt Loki’s tongue against his lips, seeking to take it deeper. Tony opened and groaned as Loki’s tongue tangled with his own. Yes, more of this was very good. If they could just do this instead of facing the Avengers, Asgard and Thanos that would just be perfect.

At that thought, Tony sighed and Loki chuckled as he pulled away.

“Probably not what we should be focusing on just now, is it?” Loki asked.

“Seriously, are you in my head?” Tony asked, amazed to have someone else think so much like him.

Loki raised an eyebrow at that, fortunately taking Tony’s words as they were meant rather than as they were strictly said, which was pretty damn insensitive, even for him. But Loki’s response was just to shake his head and kiss him lightly again. Tony could just picture it, kisses every time one of them babbled on for too long or said something stupid. There would be a lot of kissing going on. Tony was definitely ok with that vision of the future. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! Honest-to-god Frostiron feels!


	21. Chapter Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooh... you guys are going to like this one I think!
> 
> Let's hear from Clint...

“So quiet. Plotting revenge?” Nat sat down next to Clint where he was looking out the window at the city below and musing. 

Wouldn’t that just be the logical thought? Not that there was anything really to avenge. Pain sucked, but it faded. All healed up, Clint would get over it sooner rather than later. As he told Frigga, this wasn’t the first time he’d been tortured. Hell, it wasn’t even the worst. He’d take frostbite over asphyxiation any day. What Clint had told Frigga, that he couldn’t tell Nat, was how bad he felt for Loki in all this. His hurts weren’t going to be healed easily.

Clint had no idea what Loki had been like before all that shit went down in Asgard, but even Evil Loki wasn’t really that bad. He wasn’t one to hedge, and didn’t even lie that much for a spy; everything he had told Frigga had been the honest truth, and if Frigga shared that with anyone from SHIELD, he’d be benched quicker than he could shoot an arrow.

“It’d be pretty tough to do in here. You’ve got Tony’s AI watching everything and uber powerful Brother and Mom watching out.” Clint said. Ok, still the truth but definitely not the firm ‘no’ that was running through his brain.

“Well, at least you aren’t so emotionally compromised that you aren’t aware of that. Sure you aren’t willing to take that risk?” Natasha asked. 

“Absolutely not. Even if Loki’s still a threat, which seems unlikely, this isn’t the time. I just hope that Tony and Loki finish their heart to heart soon so we can go home. I’m beat.”

Nat hummed thoughtfully for a moment. “You know that information from Loki is likely going to lead to a fight, an even bigger one this time; you up for it?”

“Hell yes, you aren’t keeping me out of this. I’m involved, invested.” Clint hurried to respond.

“Even if that means working alongside Loki?” Nat asked then.

“We’re not even sure that’s going to happen.” Clint reminded her. “Loki may decide that he wants completely out of this. Lord knows, I wouldn’t blame him.”

“You may hope that is the case, but what if it isn’t? Loki may have a taste for revenge as well.”

“Then I guess we’ll see how it goes?” Clint offered. He knew what Nat was driving at. But he wasn’t sure if it was because she was worried about him going against Loki when they were trying to work with him or if she was suspicious that he was more compromised than he was letting on. So he needed to play this somewhere down the center.

“You know that isn’t good enough. Coulson’s going to want the full debriefing. If you aren’t absolutely positive of how you are going to react to Loki in any scenario, you should get out of this now.”

“Not going to happen.” Clint assured her with a smile. At that moment, the elevator dinged, and Tony and Loki came walking out. 

The two of them looked surprisingly cozy. Well, maybe it wasn’t that surprising. Loki had had a hard-on for Tony from the beginning. It was obvious to anyone with even the barest bit of smarts, which was exactly the amount that Clint had been told he had. It had only gotten worse with time until Loki had been practically gushy every time the man’s name came up. It was sickening and adorable all at the same time. And Clint wasn’t even sure that Loki had been aware of it, beyond his world domination plans. 

Tony though, Tony was a wildcard. Clint suspected that the, let’s call it, affection went both ways. Also, Clint had only partly been joking when he said that Tony was a manwhore and Loki was hot. Still, something in the way the two stood next to each other indicated more than just an attraction. 

“They seem awfully intimate don’t they?” Natasha leaned in to whisper in his ear. 

Clint smirked; if Natasha was aware, it wasn’t just him reading too much into things. He was really hoping that everything wasn’t one-sided; Clint knew that Loki would need someone on his side who didn’t have all that family baggage and, unfortunately, if Clint wanted to maintain his SHIELD career, that couldn’t be him. 

“Loki!” Thor shouted, once he had noticed who had joined them on this floor. The burly Asgardian jumped up from where he had been sitting with his mother to yank Loki away from Tony and pull him into a huge bear hug. The look on Loki’s face was clear. There was discomfort, annoyance, frustration, but there was also hurt and loss. It was painful to watch, like he was barging in on some private moment.

“Uh, hey big guy. If you still want to have a little brother by the end of the night, you may want to let him breathe.” Tony cut in after a moment. 

Not really getting the point, Thor laughed, and let his brother go, but continued standing in front of Loki, awkwardly close, well within anybody reasonable’s personal bubble. 

Loki cleared his throat, looking pointedly at the space between them. When Thor didn’t budge, Loki actually took a few steps back, which made his brother frown. 

“You look good, Loki.” Thor said then. Which, he didn’t. He had deep bruises under his eyes that were more black than purple at this point. He was too thin, something Clint had mostly beaten back when he saw Loki regularly, but had obviously backslid during those very long six weeks of absence. He looked really odd in an oversized grey sweatshirt and black pajama pants that only just barely made it to his ankles. He looked like some kind of psych ward patient, honestly. Which, yeah, if the shoe fit... 

“Thor, maybe give your brother a little bit of space.” Frigga scolded. 

“But, his eyes are green. Thanos’s influence has been extinguished, yes?” Thor said. At Loki’s hesitant nod, Thor brightened. “I have my brother back.”

Clint actually facepalmed at that. When he did, he noticed an almost identical echo of the noise his palm had made on his forehead. He looked up at that to see Tony doing the exact same thing. Loki though, Loki had that look. It was a look that Clint had learned from experience meant that Loki was working himself up for a very long rant. His fists were clenched and he could practically see the rage bubbling up through the chest and into Loki’s mouth to come out as mocking shouts. Clint opened his mouth to try to interrupt, but someone else got there first.

“Thor!” Frigga said in the best ‘mom voice’ Clint had ever heard. It wasn’t loud, but it rang through the room just the same. Even those who weren’t named ‘Thor’ found themselves sitting a bit straighter or standing at attention. 

“Come here and sit beside me.” Frigga said in a very final tone. 

Like a sad puppy, pathetic pout and all, Thor did as ordered. Loki took a deep breath. He looked over at Tony as if for moral support. Tony gave him a half smile, clapped a hand on his shoulder and nodded. So, they had worked this out already, interesting. 

“I am not going to discuss the circumstances of my birth in front of a group of strangers who as far as I know are still intent on killing or capturing me.” Loki began. Tony opened his mouth in clear denial, but Loki held up his hand to silence the man. Surprise, surprise, it actually worked. “I am aware my mother has shared the pertinent details with you, but that is all I will have on the matter.” 

He sent a death glare to Thor. Clint almost shuddered. If looks could kill, he was pretty sure they would be doing that whole viking boat funeral pyre thing that they did. 

“There is a much more important matter that you all should be concentrating on and that is the threat that Thanos poses, not just to this world, but to the universe.” Loki started, going on to explain the Titan’s plan to collect six stones that would apparently allow him to ‘bring the universe in balance’ which the crazy guy had interpreted to mean kill half the people in it. Clint had gotten the basics from Loki’s earlier rantings, but he had never come right out and said it. Shit, considering the tools that Loki said Thanos had, including several other siblings as dangerous as him and multiple armies, well damn. 

“I will do all I can to assist with your efforts against him, but I realize that what I can provide may be limited due to my potential sentence on Asgard.” Loki finished.

“Loki, no one blames you for what you did under Thanos’ influence.” Thor cut in.

“Yes, but I did more than enough before Thanos to earn myself a traitor’s execution, didn’t I?” Loki sniped back instantly. 

Thor opened his mouth to disagree, but Frigga placed a hand on his, directing his attention. The queen just shook her head, and Thor was silenced. That… that wasn’t good. The fact that Loki’s mom wasn’t instantly re-assuring her sons that Loki wouldn’t be executed... well, fuck, that was just messed up. Clint couldn’t say it wasn’t fair. He had done a lot of really bad shit in his life that he had never really paid for, Natasha even more so, but they hadn’t come close to genocide. But he couldn’t help but wonder if extenuating circumstances just had to make a difference.

Clint was clenching his fists, stiffening his jaw against speaking out. He momentarily made eye contact with Tony who had been watching him consideringly. Once Tony saw that he had Clint’s attention, he winked. He actually winked at the shit that was going down. 

“With Anthony’s help, I would like to argue for my sentence to be serving penance here on Earth, helping you with the fight against Thanos, but in order to move forward with that plan, I need permission.” Loki continued. 

Clint looked over at Frigga, who was actually looking right back at him. Actually, everyone was looking at him including Loki. He suddenly felt very uncomfortable, like he was the only one not in the know. 

“Mr. Barton, I really hope that you can see your way clear to forgiving me. I know I don’t deserve it and you may not be able to work with me, but I truly do hold you in high esteem and will do whatever is in my power to obtain your mercy.” Loki said very solemnly, his right hand fiddling with the palm of his left like he did when he was nervous. 

Shit. Clint would like just to say, ‘Sure, no harm done. That wasn’t you and I actually really like the real you and totally could see us working together in the future.’ But Natasha’s eyes were boring a hole into the back of his neck and his future debriefing with Coulson was looming. Why couldn’t Loki have tried to get him alone? The asshole just had to do the big, flowery public speech thing didn’t he?

As Clint continued to stare at the god, wide-eyed and silent, Loki actively started to curl in on himself. It was subtle, but the shoulders dipped, his right hand was now clutched in the left so hard that it looked painful, his eyes left Clint and were now staring at the floor as if the pattern was the most interesting thing he had ever seen. 

Well, fuck. Coulson was going to eviscerate him. 

“Loki, I worked with you for a long time, put up with a lot of really weird shit. I’m not going to say I’m great, but I’m definitely ok. Your mom healed me up good as new, maybe even better. My wrist isn’t even sore at all. But at the end of the day, even though it was you, it wasn’t you. I know if I had been the one in this situation… well, I would really hope that the people who knew me would be able to tell the difference. I do, and I think that even though not everyone here knows you that well, they do too. Hell, I even liked you before the whole emotion-ectomy thing you had going and even that probably wasn’t the best version of you.” Oh god, Clint had been talking too long. He was a spy; he wasn’t the kind of guy to make long speeches. He was much more of a sarcastic quip kind of person. Ah well, in for a penny… “So yeah, you try not to torture me again, maybe keep one of those everlasting coffee pots around and you can consider us square.”

If Clint was more of a poetic soul, he might say that Loki’s smile actually brightened the room several watts. It was so different from his usual smirks, that it was a little weird. But it was infectious. Clint found himself smiling; Tony was practically radioactive; Frigga had a small, pleased tilt to her lips. So yeah, all was good. Kumbaya. 


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

Loki let loose a small sigh of relief. He had absolutely no doubt that Clint’s response had been completely genuine. So that was one hurdle down. Now he just needed to survive his trial on Asgard. Nothing to worry about at all. He knew there was no way to avoid it. Not with both Thor and his mother here. He could outsmart Thor or overpower his mother, but both would not be possible. 

Cynical being that he was, Loki was already thinking of his plan to get Thor and Frigga on his side, assuming they weren’t already. He wasn’t completely sure of that assumption, which was quite frustrating as it had been centuries since he had been unsure of one of his family member’s responses. 

Thor was just so ready to have his brother back. For everything to just go back to how it was. Well that was never going to happen. If there was anything Loki had learned from Thanos it was that he would never be under anyone’s thumb ever again. In his heart, he hadn’t completely written off Thor. He got the benefit of the doubt in that he hadn’t been in on Odin and Frigga’s lie. He was also visibly more tempered, more thoughtful. His exile really had served to give him perspective, which, even though Loki hadn’t anticipated exile being Thor’s punishment, he was going to take full credit for. If Loki could get Thor to accept his plans; if he could accept that Loki would never live in Asgard again, was sloughing off any facade of being a prince or an Odinson, then maybe they could work together.

Frigga was more complicated. She had very much been apart of the lie of Loki’s life. Not only that, she had allowed Odin to make Loki feel unworthy and undeserving at every step of the way. Sure, she had tried to counter it with her own words of love and acceptance. Had tried to supplement Loki’s weapons skills with magic training, but she never disputed Odin, never spoke against her husband and king. More, she did nothing to negate all those stories that Odin had filled their heads with nothing but hatred for the Frost Giants. If they truly were so monstrous, then how could Frigga claim to love him no differently? And if the Frost Giant’s weren’t monsters, how could she let her son think otherwise? It was clear that they never intended on telling Loki the truth. Plainly, they either thought they were so clever or lucky or something, that Loki would never figure it out. To Loki it seemed more of an if than when, but then again, hindsight and all that. 

Loki sighed, filling the silence of the somber moment with the rush of air. All attention turned to him again. It was odd, normally Loki loved attention. He never felt like he had gotten enough of it, so even the most negative of situations were golden in his eyes if it meant focus was on him rather than his shining brother. But right now, it made him want to shrink away. He liked attention when he planned for it, when it was a show. Right now, he was too far in his own thoughts, too much outside of himself to really appreciate it. Fortunately, he wasn’t the only attention whore in the room. 

“Ok, so that was really cute. Awwww and all that. But I’m thinking it’s been a crazy long day and we all need to sleep.” Anthony said, expertly drawing attention to himself. 

“Can I take your word on that, sir?” JARVIS asked. Both Loki and Tony snorted. Most of the others just looked uncomfortable at the bodiless voice. 

“No, you cannot.” Anthony responded. “But I still hold to that for everyone else. So, yeah, I’ve got two guest rooms on this floor and the two floors under us are all set up for long-term guests so beds, baths, kitchen, the whole shebang. Make yourselves at home, ask Jarvis if you have any questions or requests. I figure Loki and Frigga here with me and the rest of you guys down below if you aren’t into heading back to your own places, sound good?”

Steve and Bruce nodded and started for the elevator. Clint and Natasha shared a moment that appeared to say much, despite the lack of words being traded, before they followed as well. It was not long before it was just Anthony, Frigga, Thor and Loki. 

“I would rather stay up here.” Thor said firmly. “Loki and I can share a room; we’ve done it often enough in the past.”

“No, we absolutely will not.” Loki countered. Thor gave him that look that said that Loki was being unnecessarily difficult and just needed to listen to his older brother. It was infuriating. 

“Now, brother…” Thor started.

“I am not your brother!” Loki shouted. “Why is that so difficult for you to get through your dense skull? Your brother spent his entire life in your shadow, working twice as hard for half the recognition. Your brother ‘knew his place’ and tried his hardest to think only of the good of Asgard; to follow his father and his king even when he knew that it was wrong. Your brother died in Jotunheim. You need to accept that right now if you ever intend on having another conversation with me.”

Thor looked, well, cowed seemed to be the right word, but it hadn’t been anything he’d ever managed to inspire in his brother before. He was certainly speechless. Then his surprise melted into a hurt that made Loki start to feel guilty about his outburst.

“Loki, how could you speak to him like that?” Frigga asked, her calm demeanor replaced by appalled indignation. 

“How could I? Is that the question? How could you?” Loki’s guilt was but a fond memory at Frigga’s words and he turned on her. “You were my mother. You claim to love me as such. How could you lie to me all these years? How could you allow me to hate myself? My people? How could you watch as Odin wore me down and broke my spirit and done nothing?”

Frigga’s mouth had been open to counter Loki’s initial statement, but it closed with a click as he continued to speak. There was no guilt on her face, no hurt, no pity, nothing. Loki knew it was a mask; he used to be able to wear one just as well. He found that a bit harder with everything that had happened of late, but it was still a familiar tactic. So no, he didn’t believe that his mother felt nothing at his words, but she wasn’t going to admit fault in front of Thor and certainly not in front of Tony. 

Thor stepped towards Loki then, looking like he wanted to beat some sense into him; or just hit him for hurting their mother. But once again, Anthony intervened.

“Uh.. yeah. So, not that those aren’t all very valid points that I am sure Thor and Frigga would like to expand upon, but do we maybe think that 2am is probably not the right time for this? Maybe if we all sleep on it we can talk about this over coffee. Maybe we’ll even get to something approaching normal indoor volume.”

“You’re right, Anthony.” Loki said immediately. Thor looked shocked at Loki’s statement and he could feel himself getting frustrated all over again. Loki could admit that someone else was right. It’s just that Thor never was, so the oaf had never heard that statement before. 

“Yes, that is a fine suggestion, Mr. Stark. Would you mind showing me to my room? Thor, would you please join your teammates on the lower floors?” Frigga said with all the grace of her station. 

Thor looked ready to argue again, but at Frigga’s sharp look, he thought better of it. Which really was a sign that he had managed to learn at least that much restraint. Still, he made about as much noise as a troll as he left, stomping to demonstrate his displeasure. Loki rolled his eyes and when he turned to Anthony, saw that he was doing the same. That made him smile, just a bit. Tony led Frigga to the guest room on the other side of the floor of his bedroom. 

“We will speak in the morning, my dear. Please remember that I love you.” Frigga said to them before retiring. 

“Love you too, mom!” Anthony said cheekily, perhaps to keep Loki from having to answer. 

Frigga did allow a small smile at that. “Yes, you will do nicely, but the Nine Realms are certainly not prepared for the likes of you two.”

At that very odd statement, Frigga nodded at them both and shut the door. 

“Do I even want to know?” Anthony asked Loki as he led them back to the other side of the floor. 

“Probably not. Frigga does have the gift of foretelling, likely she has seen something.” 

Anthony gave him a withering look. “Seriously? The woman can see the future and STILL thought it was a good idea to lie to you about where you came from? Is she crazy?”

Loki actually laughed at that. It was mostly a surprised huff, but still, he was going to consider it progress. “She can’t see everything and often it’s more like dreams. Metaphor, bits and pieces that don’t make sense until after an event has already happened. It’s mostly useless for actually preventing an event from occurring, but she can sometimes steer people in the right direction.”

“Sounds chintzy to me. Have I mentioned to you that I really hate magic? Because it’s all this crazy symbols and senses and all sorts of non-measurable nonsense.”

“No, Stark. You have absolutely never mentioned how much you hate magic in all the times you were fighting a magical enemy.” Loki said deadpan. Truly, the man had mentioned it at least ten times on their date alone. Loki didn’t mind. He found it endlessly amusing that the man thought his own ‘science’ was superior, especially when his magic was more akin to a more advanced version of their very rudimentary ‘physics’ than what Tony thought of as actual magic. 

“Well then, I’m putting it on the record now. JARVIS take a note. I hate magic.” Anthony said. 

“Of course, sir. Would you like me to put it next to the twenty-three other times you’ve spoken a similar sentiment?” The AI responded. 

Loki could make a lot of inferences about a man who programmed his artificially intelligent assistant to be wry and sarcastic at every turn, even to its maker; maybe especially to its maker. But for now, he just enjoyed being amused at the banter between the two. He was suddenly very glad that he hadn’t managed to steal JARVIS. It was very clear to Loki that Tony loved the AI dearly. Far from being a soulless string of code, JARVIS was his friend, his family. Loki knew far too well what it was like to lose your family. 


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt so bad about my disappearance for a few days that I decided let's post both Lokitty and Son of Chaos today!

Tony actually did manage to get a few hours of sleep. Still his seven am alarm came far too early. Tony slept in the nude, but just managed to pull together enough brain cells to remember that he had guests on his floor and should probably pull on a pair of sweatpants before grabbing his coffee. 

Even though his guests had gotten as little sleep as Tony had, they were both awake when he got to the dining room. They were holding steaming mugs, staring into the liquid instead of at one another. That was all the attention they received, until the smell hit Tony’s nose. Wafting toward him was the most delightfully smelling coffee he had ever experienced. He practically ran to the coffee maker, poured himself a cup and promptly drained it in one long gulp before refilling his mug and settling down to enjoy it. 

“It is my trial to be surrounded by men addicted to that disgusting beverage.” Loki said, but he was smiling fondly.  

“And what are you drinking that is so much better?” Tony asked. Now that he had caffeine, he was able to form some basic words.

“English breakfast tea.” Loki responded, toasting him with the mug before taking a pull.

“Ugh, leaf juice. No.”

“You’re drinking bean juice, how is that better?” Loki countered. 

Tony sniffed. “It just is.” Then he drained his mug and got up for another one. It look him a moment to realize that the coffee pot was as full as it had been when he first woke up. 

“Oh, is this what you did for Clint? You gave him unlimited amounts of this obscene deliciousness?” Tony asked reverently.

“Yes…” Loki drew out the word with his brow raised suspiciously. 

“Marry me!” Tony said. 

Loki looked over at Frigga for a moment before looking back at Tony. “Pardon me?”

“I need to lock this down before Clint steals you away. Because with as much as he supposedly loves coffee, he will try to steal you away.”

“Well, he has already professed his love,” Loki said then, grinning now and playing along with the joke. “I feel like that technically gives him prior claim.”

“Psshhh… if he didn’t act on it, a marriage proposal totally trumps a love profession. Look it up, it’s in the Midgardian rulebook.”

“I’ll do that and get back to you.” Loki smirked, returning to his coffee.

Tony decided that life was short, so he got himself a fourth mug of coffee. Really, it was that good. He hummed happily to himself. “I love magic.”

“JARVIS?” Loki said.

“I have made a note of sir’s comment. It is filed under ‘hypocrite’” JARVIS responded.

“Traitor!” Tony hissed. 

“I promise to only side with Mr. Odinson when he is correct, sir.” JARVIS responded. 

It was amazing what one little word could do to kill the mood. 

“JARVIS, if you don’t mind. I would prefer to be called by just Loki.” The man in question said, very obviously not making eye contact with Mrs. Odinson.

“My apologies, sir. It won’t happen again.” JARVIS responded, sounding appropriately somber. 

“So, yeah. Maybe I should take my magical brew elsewhere? Give you two time to talk?” Tony offered, not really wanting to leave the room. Sure, he could listen to their whole conversation via JARVIS. But if Loki asked him to leave, he wouldn’t actually do that. But he was more than a little concerned as to how this conversation was going to go. Tony was pretty sure that things would be much better if Loki and his mother were on speaking terms by the time they went to Asgard. 

“No, Anthony. You may stay,” Loki said. 

“Loki, I believe this would be a discussion better kept within the family,” Frigga countered gently.

“In that case, I would be excluded as well, wouldn’t I?” Loki sniped back.

Frigga sighed. “If you are just going to tug at every little statement, I don’t see the point of having this conversation.”

“Then you really aren’t going to see the point of this conversation,” Loki responded. 

Tony looked back and forth between the two. He may have been having some teenage flashbacks; wait, was Loki younger than him? Well, no because god who’s been around since at least ancient Norse times. How did that equate in age? He would need additional data. Yeah, this was definitely getting nowhere fast. And Tony wasn’t just referring to his own internal dialogue.

“So, I can just sit here and be awkwardly listening to your conversation. I’m not sure you want me as a mediator or anything; I’m probably the least qualified person for something like that, but even I get the impression that you aren’t going to get very far at this rate.” Tony cut in.    
  
“I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, Mr. Stark. But it very well may be that my son and I are at an impasse.” Frigga said. 

Loki opened his mouth, likely to counter the ‘my son’ comment but Tony put a hand on his thigh, effectively shutting him up. Loki glared daggers but listened.

“Look, he said at least some of his peace last night, I know this is not my place and you guys are all like thousands of years older than me, but I think he kind of deserves a response, don’t you?” Tony said. “But, Loki, you have to actually let her talk so she can actually say what she needs to say. Oh god, I am actually doing the mediator thing. To gods no less. This is really surreal.”

Tony put his head in his hands. He knew he really shouldn’t have more coffee, but he really felt like he needed it. 

“The last thing I ever wanted was for you to be hurt like this, Loki. Truly, I wanted you to be happy, to feel loved and accepted and that was why I agreed to hide the truth from you. I will admit now that it was a mistake. We should have foreseen that it could never stay a secret and therefore we needed to tell you in the right time and place. Finding out as you did, it just made everything worse. As for those stories of the Frost Giants that you were raised with, as you know very well I didn’t tell them, but it wasn’t as if I could stop Odin, my king as well as my husband. You know that. I did my best to instill you and Thor with tales of justice and acceptance, but perhaps that just wasn’t enough.” Frigga sighed. 

Loki snorted. “I am not so sure how hard you tried to fight Odin and his frankly awful parenting. Honestly, I felt more acceptance and pride from Thanos, so take what you will from that. My magic was appreciated if nothing else.”

Tony winced. Damn, if that was even partly true, that was just … bad. Tony suddenly realized that if all went according to his plans he was going to meet the All-Daddy himself. Oh god, if Loki was talking like this to Frigga, who he fully admitted to loving, how was he going to talk to Odin? Tony got the sinking feeling that Loki’s trial was going to be doomed before it ever began.

“Here’s the thing, I do believe that you had good intentions; I do believe that you loved me. But I am currently on my way to face trial and possible execution for  _ my _ good intentions. All you have to do is listen to my grievances and accept that I may never forgive you. Honestly, if the trial goes as I expect, you won't even have to put up with it that long. Does that really not seem fair to you?” Loki’s words were biting, far more so because they did feel fair and true. 

Frigga looked down at her mug of tea, likely gone cold by this point and sighed. 

“I know you feel harshly, towards your father.”

“He is not my father.” Loki hissed through clenched teeth. 

“Then am I no longer your mother?” Frigga asked then. 

“You’re not.” Loki said firmly before his face crumpled. “Maybe someday again, but just ... not right now.”

Frigga nodded resolutely. “I’m going to get your… I’m going to get Thor. I know you need to speak with him as well When you are done, we will make our way back to Asgard. Mr. Stark, I expect you’ll be joining us?”

Tony looked up at Frigga baffled that she had made that connection. He looked at Loki who just shrugged looking absolutely exhausted. 

“Uhhh… how the hell did you know that?” Tony asked. 

Frigga looked sideways at Loki, just the tiniest smile in the corner of her mouth. “Call it a mother’s intuition.”

She left then, without another word. It was a really good dramatic exit, if Tony had to say so himself.

“Yes, she always gets the last word.” Loki said, once again reading his mind.

“Do we really just think that similarly?” Tony asked him. 

He decided, fuck it, he was having another cup of coffee, pouring himself one before sitting down. Loki made a gesture towards the coffee pot, seeming to indicate that he wanted some as well. Tony was suspicious given the god’s reaction to his coffee earlier. So he poured a cup, but he rummaged around his cabinets and put in some cream and some caramel syrup as well before handing it back.

Loki looked down at the coffee contemplatively. He smelled it and there was a look of surprised pleasure on his face so he took a tentative sip. It was seriously adorable to watch the delight bloom on that face that he had seen with far too many negative emotions thus far. It was so cute that Tony had to lean over the table to give the guy a little kiss. Loki hummed happily into Tony’s mouth, turning it from a little kiss into something slightly less chaste. Then the elevator dinged and Thor made his presence known with some more stomping, so they quickly pulled away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I keep flip-flopping between angst and fluff but I just can't help it with these two... it's looking like it's going to be a trend for the next few chapters at the very least.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold on, kids! We're going to Asgard!

Tony got up  to fill another coffee mug for Thor. When Thor sat down, Tony placed the mug in front of him. Thor grunted his thanks and continued to glare moodily at Loki.

“Sleep well, big guy?” Tony asked, trying to dissolve a bit of the tension.

“No,” Thor said. Despite the man’s often gruff exterior, Thor had never been monosyllabic before. But Thor just turned his attention to Loki. “Mother said that you have words for me.”

“Honestly, I think I covered it pretty well last night. But feel free to say what you need to say. Might as well get it in before they execute me.” Loki said dryly.

Tony was really starting to get twitchy with all this talk of executing. He really couldn’t believe that they would actually do that to Loki. Forget that his father was the King, maybe Odin really was that much of a bastard, but Tony would never in a million years believe that Frigga wasn’t able to get her way with the king when it mattered most. Loki had to learn those wiley ways from someone and it damn sure wasn’t Thor.

“You know I would never let that happen.” Thor growled.

“Oh really? So you are going to fight Odin then? Swing Mjolnir against your own father? That might almost be worth it.”

“It won't come to that…” Thor started

“Then what will you do, Thor?” Loki asked. Thor looked at him as if he wasn’t sure what Loki was really asking. “No really, tell me. You say that you would never let that happen, so what do you think will happen and how will you stop it? If you are going to make these sweeping claims of brotherly love, suddenly defend me as you never have in the past, at least back up your words with even the slightest amount of forethought!”

Loki looked expectantly at Thor. The man remained silent. “That’s what I thought. Your words mean absolutely nothing if you don’t actually expect that outcome. You want me to believe that you’ll stand by my side, but you never have. You’ve always just stood one step in front of me, making sure I was in my place.”

Thor winced then. “I love you, Loki.”

“I love you too, Thor.” Loki admitted, then he sighed when he saw how much the blonde man brightened at those words. “But I loved you when I got you exiled. I even loved you when I tried to kill you. Love doesn’t just make everything better; it solves nothing.”

“If you don’t want a brother, what do you want from me?” Thor asked, visibly trying not to raise his voice.

“Just… be there. Be whoever this new person is you are trying to be. He seems decent thus far. If I get my way…”

“You always get your way eventually,” Thor muttered darkly.

Loki smirked then, looking like his cocky self once again. “When I get my way, we’ll be working together here on Earth. We can be teammates, maybe we’ll even manage to be friends. Assuming Thanos doesn’t kill us, we have plenty of time to work back up to brothers.”

Loki had managed several sentences before mentioning dying again, so Tony was going to consider it a win? Thor nodded, but didn’t say anything further. Ok, that was one more item down. The next one was a biggie, though. Heading to Asgard to convince the All-daddy that Loki should be allowed back to their sandbox to play instead of being given time-out. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t like trying to defeat some all powerful Titan dude who already had two Infinity Stones that they knew of, with possibly more on the way would be a barrel of laughs. But it definitely was what they needed. More importantly, it was what Tony wanted. And Tony fought hard for what he wanted.

Or… wait, shit. Next item as actually telling Pepper to cancel his meetings because he was going to a different planet to help defend an alien invader from his adopted father. Could Tony just skip to the Titan?

Tony waved off Loki to get ready while he made the call.

“Good morning, Tony. Please tell me this call is because you are on your way to the meeting and wanted to brag that you’ll actually be on time.” Pepper answered in her no-nonsense voice.

“About that… something’s come up,” Tony started.

“Is it Loki again?” Pepper asked with a sigh.

“Yes, actually. Uh… I’ve got him here in the tower, and we’re on our way to Asgard.”

“You’ve actually caught him?” Pepper asked with an insulting amount of surprise.

“Not precisely…” Tony started before thinking ‘fuck it, this is Pepper’ and just barreling in. “See, it turned out that Loki was under mind control by a big bad the whole time. So Thor went to get his mom who is this super powerful sorceress to beat the voodoo. It worked, but it turned out that Loki had done a few things at home previously when he was all crazy from finding out he was adopted, so we’re going to Asgard to determine if we can get him a fair trial and maybe get his sentence set to help the Avengers with Thanos, that’s the bad guy who wants to destroy the universe.”

“Oh, Tony only you.” Ton could practically hear Pepper shaking her head over the phone.

“Why do people keep saying that? I don’t go looking for the crazy; it’s like it’s attracted to me.”

“So I was right? About you and Loki?”

Tony snorted. “You’re always right, Pep.”

“Stay safe, Tony. And try not to piss anyone off too much. I don’t need to add interplanetary incident to my list of contingency plans.”

“I’ll do my best.” Tony assured her.

Pepper’s disbelieving hum showed just how much she thought about that promise. “Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

Yeah, he and Pepper were solid. “That will be all Ms. Potts.”

So,Tony got off the phone and the two gods joined him to meet back up with Frigga. She smiled warmly when she saw that her sons weren’t actively trying to kill one another; Tony really couldn’t blame her.

“Do we need to inform the rest of your team that you will be coming with us, Mr. Stark?” Frigga asked him.

Was Tony going to go down and argue with Mr. Black and White about why he was going up to Asgard to help argue for the guy they had been fighting for months to be able to come back to Earth? And why Steve couldn’t come? Not that Frigga had refused having anyone else come, Tony just didn’t want him to. That would be a big nope.

“Nah, JARVIS will keep them updated. Right, buddy?”

“Yes, sir. I will be sure to inform your team that you are heading to an alien planet with no set return time. I’m sure they will be very reassured.”

Loki smirked. Frigga and Thor looked up at the ceiling with slight frowns.

“Thanks, buddy. See you on the DL.” Tony said, grinning at the nearest camera. JARVIS sighed.

“So how do we get to…” Tony started asking before the four of them were awash in a rainbow of light.

Suddenly, Tony was standing on a bridge that looked as if the light beam they had just been hit with had been turned into a solid. They were several feet clear of the shattered end of the bridge that just dropped of into a dark abyss; it still made Tony’s stomach roil though. Actually, he wasn’t alone in his staring at the edge nervously. Not a single one of his companions looked any less than sick to their stomachs at the sight. So, wordlessly they turned around and walked the other way.

It was a long-ass walk to the palace and Tony couldn’t help but wonder… these people were able to travel across planets, how the hell were they not able to just teleport right into the palace, which was where they wanted to go? Lightyears were no problem, but miles gave them trouble? Tony tried to figure out why that might be, maybe some sort of macro-scale uncertainty principle where they couldn’t determine a set landing point? But no, Thor landed right on his tower balcony, right where Loki was. No, either they were just stubborn as hell about entry into Asgard or there was something he was missing.

Tony’s scientific musings dropped off as they approached the palace, replaced with thoughts of ‘shiny’ and ‘JARVIS, you thought I was being ostentatious’. Those thoughts were quickly displaced by ‘shit, we’re actually going to have to see Odin’ and contemplating ‘if Loki went off so heavily on Thor and Frigga who he was way more conflicted about than Odin, how the hell is this trial going to go?’ Yeah, maybe some strategizing was in order.

“So what’s the plan? How does this whole thing usually go? We have a pretty formal set-up on Earth but my space justice is a bit rusty.” Tony said then.

“A prince committing treason isn’t exactly a common circumstance.” Loki drawled.

Thor and Frigga both stare reproachfully at him.

“What? We need to be prepared for Odin. I don’t care how blind you are to what’s going on, you know Odin has never given me even the slightest benefit of the doubt.”

“Treason seems a little…” Frigga started.

“Accurate?” Loki interrupted. “Even I can admit that letting Frost Giants into Asgard to disrupt Thor’s coronation was treason. I would do it again in a heartbeat, but that doesn’t change the facts. I wouldn’t go to Jotunheim this time, but that’s a different problem. But which of you would like to bet that Odin _won’t_ consider everything I did afterwards treason as well? Who would like to argue that Odin won’t hold me just as responsible for the events on Midgard?”

Frigga and Thor were frustratingly silent. Seriously? They couldn’t even…? Oh, they really were as screwed as Loki thought, weren’t they?

“Ok, I am already absolutely exhausted from that whole rainbow trip and being the voice of reason for so long, despite my usual inclinations. I’m guessing there will be some meeting, yes? And that’s probably not going to be today since the All-daddy needs to prepare?”

“Yes, Anthony, please call him All-Daddy when we meet him tomorrow.” Loki snorted.

Oh, Tony would call Odin all manner of terribly inappropriate names if it got that reaction.

“Yes, Mr. Stark. There will be a trial and it will likely take some time to organize. I would suggest that we all go to our various quarters to recharge.” Frigga nodded; well, she couldn’t be too mad about the all-daddy comment, if she wasn’t saying anything.

“Stark, the visitor’s wing…” Thor started, but Frigga held her hand up.

“Mr. Stark will do just fine in Loki’s quarters.” Frigga responded. Without waiting for a response, she tucked her arm through Thor’s and gently pulled him away.

“Have a good evening, boys. I will send someone with dinner once you’ve had time to get settled.” Frigga called.

Loki waved; Tony did finger guns. He looked at Loki from the corner of his eye when he did, and sure enough there was that lopsided smirk. Loki shook his head, then with a grin, looped his arm through Tony’s the same way Frigga had with Thor. They started walking in the opposite direction.

“So… is it just me or did you mom give us tacit approval to do the dirty?” Tony asked after they were a reasonable distance away from anyone that he could see.

Loki snorted in surprise. “What?”

“She said I’d be fine in your quarters. She just volunteered me to share your bed. After the comments last time, I feel like she knows there’s something going on between us, so…”

“Anthony, I’m a prince. My wing has a guest suite.” Loki said with amusement.

“Oh,” Tony responded. He couldn’t decide if he was relieved or disappointed. It was definitely a bit of both. It was less creepy that Frigga wasn’t expecting naughty times, but that didn’t precisely mean that Tony didn’t _want_ naughty times. That is, if Loki felt up to it. But he was getting the distinct impression that Loki _was_ up to it if the kissing earlier and the current cuddling as they strolled through the halls of Asgard were any impression.

“I’m a little surprised I don’t have an armed escort following us. I had assumed I’d be under house arrest in my quarters. I’m tempted to sneak away and show you some of Asgard. Who knows when or even if I’ll be back.” Loki turned to Tony. “What do you say, shall we risk it?”

Looking at the mischief, hope and barely disguised fear in Loki’s eyes, how could Tony say no?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: The Trial... dun dun duuuuuunnnnnnn!


	25. Chapter Twenty-Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok.... so.... I lied, the trial isn't in this chapter. But it's actually more like I forgot that I went gushy for so long on Tony and Loki together in Asgard that I had to make the trial it's own chapter. But! As an apology, you get two chapters in one day (especially since this one is a bit short) so you still get to read about the trial today! Enjoy!

With such a willing partner in crime, Loki couldn’t resist sneaking around most of Asgard with Anthony. He veiled them so they didn’t have to deal with any stares or recriminations, and it felt like they had the run of Asgard. Loki took him to the marketplace first. They had to tread lightly to avoid being run into or stepped on in a place so crowded. Loki had started to get frustrated, but then they had come to a metalworker’s stall. The gleam in Anthony’s eyes, the pure curiosity and wonder made it all worth it.  So Loki resigned himself to enjoying Anthony enjoying the market.

It was at least an hour before Loki could finally bring himself to pull Anthony away from drooling over some data pads. He pouted adorably, right up until they entered the library. Loki sighed in uncomplicated pleasure at the quiet atmosphere and the smell of paper. They spent slightly more time in the library, and it was Anthony who had to pull  _ him _ away this time. 

They had visited his favorite garden, the orchards, the stables. Stark had, of course, been unable to resist making a joke about Sleipnir. Loki had rolled his eyes and let it go; that joke had become tired centuries ago and it had no basis in reality anyways. He found that the lack of reaction caused more of a sulk than an angry one probably would have, which pleased Loki to no end. It was always good to know your compatriot’s weak points. 

They visited every place Loki had ever loved, and Loki had found that he was downright nostalgic; feeling a fondness for his old haunts in a way that he hadn’t since long before Thor’s disastrous coronation. It was a pleasant feeling, knowing that beneath all the current memories of pain and grief, both false and real, that he could still feel something positive for his erstwhile home. 

Loki hesitated to think of these visits as bidding farewell, but by the end of the evening, he had to admit that was the case. He wasn’t giving up, like Anthony feared. He wasn’t being cynical. Even if Loki got exactly what he wanted from the trial with Odin, he had no intention of ever calling Asgard home again. He had given this place everything and in the end, it hadn’t been enough. They had found him lacking, and yet he knew he had absolutely nothing more that he could give. It was that despair that had driven him into the void, and he wouldn’t do that to himself, never again. So he would enjoy this time here with Anthony and then he would say goodbye to Asgard, in one way or another. 

It was these thoughts that filled Loki’s head when Anthony and he had been forced to admit defeat, and they made their way back to Loki’s quarters to give in to exhaustion. But Loki couldn’t resist pulling Anthony into his own bedroom to show him some of Loki’s personal collection. Anthony’s curiosity and pleasure at the vendors in the marketplace were nothing compared to being able to explore Loki’s own treasures.  

The talking turned to telling stories; yawning led to lying down on Loki’s large bed, just so they could continue talking without tiring themselves out. Their appropriate distance dwindled as they inched towards one another, just so they could speak softer. This led to kissing and touching and oh, so much more. Loki was pleased to remember that he could also do this; be intimate with someone; to give pleasure and receive it back in return. Like everything else had been with Anthony, it was easy; beautiful in simplicity as much as its inevitability. 

Lying together afterwards, limbs entangled and catching their breaths, Loki’s heart clenched. This, he thought, this was something worth living for, worth fighting for. Anthony was a man that once he had decided you were worth it, would stay by your side unequivocally. Anthony wasn’t just a fighter, he was a thinker with a truly generous spirit. 

“Anthony?” Loki asked, wondering if the mortal was even still awake.

“Hmmm?” Anthony murmured, not quite asleep, but not far from it.

“Why are you here?” While Loki appreciated it more than he could ever say, he couldn’t keep from questioning it. 

“Here? Um... because you’re hot and seemed pretty into it to?” Anthony responded.

Loki elbowed him in the gut. Anthony moaned exaggeratedly. They shuffled, pulling apart but just so they could come together once more facing one another. 

“You mean why I’m here in Asgard? Here with you?” Anthony asked once they had settled.

“Yes…”

“Because you needed me to be.” Anthony said then. “No one has ever really needed me, not like that. But I came to get you and you let me comfort you…” 

Anthony trailed off then, apparently remembering the uncomfortable moment. Loki really hadn’t thought more of it beyond mortification. He hadn’t considered that it meant anything to Anthony. 

“But I can’t say that you being obscenely attractive wasn’t like 50% of it.” 

Loki huffed. 

“Ok, maybe only like 40%” Anthony grinned and kissed Loki on the nose. “I’m here because I want to be. I hope that you want the same thing.”

“I do; I am a little concerned by how much.” Loki admitted. 

“Don’t be.” Anthony yawned. “I’m sure everything is going to work out fine.”

“Somehow I didn’t peg you for an optimist.” Loki mused.

“I’m not. Must be tired. Sleep now.” Anthony yawned again, and brushed his hands lightly over Loki’s face as if trying to close his eyes for him. Loki spluttered and smacked the hand away, but he was still grinning.  

“Good night, Anthony.”

His comment was met only by rhythmic breathing. Loki’s smile softened into something probably far too sappy for him to be willing to show to anyone else. Maybe Anthony was right, optimist or no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Loki and Tony are official! They've done the dirty (sorry, I went with sweet over smut; actually, nope, not at all sorry, I love that part). Now on to the trial!


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys... I have to say. I think this may be my favorite chapter so far. I am so excited for you to read it!

Anthony was a fool, and Loki was an even bigger one to believe him. Loki just stood, facing his father in that imposing golden throne, clenching his fists to keep himself from bursting out. Odin was currently in the process of listing Loki’s crimes. They’d finally gotten past the ones on Asgard and had moved on to those he committed on Midgard. It was rather a shame that neither Frigga nor Thor had taken his bet. He could have made himself a bit richer, at least for the remaining days until his inevitable execution.

But worse than the listing of crimes that Loki felt guilty enough for, was the cold look in Odin’s eyes. Loki’s erstwhile father had never been the warm and cozy-type, even with Thor, but nothing in that stone face betrayed the fact that he was currently condemning someone he thought of as a son. 

Once the list of crimes came to an end. Odin made eye-contact with Loki for the first time. And Loki had thought the Jotun’s blood was frozen…

“And what does the accused have to say for himself?” Odin asked.

“What is there for me to say?” Loki asked. He could hear Anthony groan beside him. “It’s fairly clear you’ve already made up your mind. What could I possibly say that would make any difference?”

“You could at least feign some semblance of remorse for your actions.”

Loki snorted. “ _ My _ actions…”

“Either speak for yourself in something other than flippant disregard or so help me I’ll sew your mouth shut.” Odin snapped.

Beside him, Anthony let out a shocked gasp. Loki just laughed darkly. It wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to.

“Of course, your majesty. My apologies. I’ll make myself clearer.” Anthony tugged on his hand in what Loki could clearly tell was a gesture meant to make him calm down, but Loki was going to speak his peace. 

“You said my actions, which I took offense to. You see, while I will state that my actions of allowing the Jotuns into Asgard to stop Thor’s coronation were perhaps hasty, certainly inadvisable, I can’t claim to feel the least bit remorseful for them. I finally got you to see what you had been ignoring for decades; Thor wasn’t ready to rule.”

“I would consider that to be the least heinous of what you did. Surely you have no defense for convincing your brother to invade Jotunheim, starting a war, getting him banished, seizing the throne, trying to kill Thor and his friends and trying to destroy Jotunheim?”

“No, I don’t actually. Mostly because I wasn’t at fault for Thor heading off to Jotunheim. That was purely his decision and I had requested that a guard stop us before we even made it over there.” Loki explained calmly. “Everything after that was arguably your fault as much as mine.”

“You dare?” Odin hissed.

“Absolutely, I do. The one thing I can be thankful for after all this is that  _ finally _ I dare. I’ve tried speaking rationally to you for centuries, tried to make you see my perspective. But you have only one eye and that is all for Thor. Nothing of what happened after Thor was banished, would have happened if you had just told me the truth from the beginning. Perhaps treated me as something other than an inconvenient burden. You’re so blind to it that I don’t think you even realize just how differently you’ve treated me than Thor all these years.”

“I’ve tried to get you to live up to your potential…” Odin started. 

“My potential? You mean the fact that you told me that I was born to be a king? And yet when Mother handed me Gungnir when Thor was banished and you fled to the Odin-sleep rather than face me, you still deem it seizing the throne.” 

“She never mentioned…” Odin began to say, before looking at the angry glance being thrown his way by Frigga. “Well, maybe she did, but that doesn’t excuse the other crimes.”

“For everything I did on Asgard punish me,” Loki said finally, feeling far more exhausted than the time would indicate. Odin would always have excuses; would never admit the slightest bit of fault. He could argue with Frigga and Thor and while he didn’t enjoy it, he could see the benefit. With Odin it was just frustrating and pointless. 

“So you admit your guilt?” Odin asked, looking suspicious.

“Freely.” Loki agreed. “But don’t you dare put on me what that monster made me do. Bad enough that I had to live it; don’t make me pay for it twice.”

Something about Odin’s condemnation alleviated a bit of the guilt that Loki felt. Intellectually, he knew he had been forced, in his heart… well he remembered far too well how much the thoughts had felt like his own, how much he had enjoyed it. It was too much  _ him _ for Loki to completely detach himself. Anthony’s hand in his clenched harder in support.

“So who do you propose I punish? Someone must pay.”

“How about the guy who actually did it? You know.. Thanos?” Anthony interjected. 

“And who is this? A mouse who dares to squeak in the cat’s house?” Odin asked Frigga and Thor. Loki didn’t laugh, but just barely. Oh, Odin would regret that statement. 

“A mouse!?!” Tony squawked.

“This is Anthony Stark, a warrior of Midgard and one of their most wealthy and powerful,” Thor explained.

“Definitely, not a mouse. Not a cat either. A wolf? Wolf is always good, better than a cat anyway,” Tony continued as if Thor hadn’t spoken.

“And why am I subject to his ramblings?” Odin asked. 

“He is here to speak in Loki’s defense.” Frigga responded.

“Yes, Loki would find someone even more mad than himself to speak for him.” Odin mused.

“Now listen here, All-Daddy.” Anthony started. Loki burst out in a loud guffaw. Odin for his part was effectively silenced. Thor hung his head in defeat. Frigga was, predictably, neutral. “I may not live for thousands of years, but I still deserve to be heard. In fact, I would say far more so than you lot. You guys can drone on for decades, but us mortals have only so much time to say what we need to, so we tend to get to the point a lot quicker.”

“Then get to it. Then I can stop droning on, as you say.” Odin said, eerily calm. It made Loki’s stomach churn. Odin was far less frightening when he was yelling.

“Gladly, let’s see, where was I? Oh, yeah, you and your awful parenting. I mean, really, I thought my dad was the worst; then you come along and I feel like I need to be sending him a decades worth of back-logged Father’s Day cards. Lying to Loki about who he was, what he was, screwed him up big time. I mean, that causes a huge existential crisis, who wouldn’t go a little crazy learning all that? So, we have this thing on Earth, a legal defence called ‘temporary insanity’. Basically, circumstances were such that the defendant, which in this case is Loki, was insane at the time of committing the crime, and therefore was incapable of knowing the nature of his criminal act. Seems to me like this kind of qualifies.”

Odin’s eyes narrowed as Anthony continued talking until they were as thin as slits. Loki was some mixture of amused and terrified. It looked like Anthony’s time of playing the calm mediator was behind him. It was somewhat comforting that Loki wasn’t the only one far more frustrated in dealing with Odin as Thor and Frigga. But challenging Odin like this wasn’t the way to win his support. You had to nudge, to coax, to wheedle him into making the decision himself, never knowing that you had prodded him into it. Beating him over the head with it would only make him dig in his heels. 

“So how long does this ‘temporary’ insanity last? Would you really excuse the death and destruction he brought upon your world?”

“I’ve killed far more people on my own world than Loki has and, my reasons aside, I didn’t have brainwashing as an excuse. Thanos used some ultimately powerful stone thing that your wife had to use up a lot of juice to break. How do you not get this? It’s like you are willing to look like an idiot if it just means that you can punish Loki.”

Loki’s stomach fell.Yep, he was definitely going to die. Resignation was an interesting thing. He wasn’t nearly as frightened as he thought he would be once it had been confirmed. Mostly he was just tired. At least it would be over. Anthony and Thor and the rest of the heroes could fight Thanos, could maybe even win with this much of a head start. The titan had no idea what would be coming for him.

“Anthony Stark, you are arrogant, impudent and unruly,”  Odin started, face terse. 

“Here we go…” Tony said darkly, echoing Loki’s thoughts precisely 

“But I am forced to admit in this case you may be right.” Odin sighed as if he was buckling under the weight of the heavy pillars around them. He looked almost as he did when about to go into the Odin-sleep. Wouldn’t be the first time he dropped at the least opportune moment. “I’ve let my own perceptions and, yes, my own arrogance and guilt, cloud my judgement as to what was going on. But I cannot just forgive all of Loki’s crimes.”

“Of course, you would listen to a midgardian stranger over me.” Loki burst out. This was infuriating and just completely typical.

“Hey!”

“I’m sorry, Anthony. But I have been trying to get through to him my entire life. And you come in here and insult him and berate him for five minutes and suddenly he sees the light. All because it’s not me.”

“Loki, we’re winning; don’t blow this.” Anthony nudged Loki in the ribs and muttered under his breath.

“If I hadn’t already written off Asgard, I would do so now. This should be no surprise. This should change nothing, but…” Loki trailed off, not knowing what else to say. His arms dropped listlessly at his sides, spent of all their earlier animation. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Loki saw Thor start forward, an arm extended as if to reach for Loki’s neck in that familiar, soothing gesture. Loki jerked his head no, before turning to Odin.

“So, what’s my punishment?” Loki asked, his voice almost unrecognizable in its listlessness. 

Beside him Anthony cleared his throat. Ah, yes. They were supposed to be proposing their own punishment suggestion. Not like Odin would listen to Loki anyways. Actually, that gave him an idea.

“Or maybe you’d like Anthony here to propose a punishment. Norns know, he makes far more sense than I ever have.” Loki spat caustically.

Odin raised a questioning eyebrow, but turned his attention to Anthony. 

“So, what  _ would _ you propose his punishment be?” Odin asked.

“Me? Um, well, you asked who to punish for Loki’s actions on Midgard, I said the guy who had forced him to do them, Thanos. Loki’s powerful and cunning, he couldn’t do any good, couldn’t make up for any of his actions, just wasting away in a jail cell.” Tony started. 

Obviously, he didn’t seem to want to put the idea of execution in Odin’s mind. He probably wasn’t aware that it was likely at the forefront from the beginning. 

“So, I suggest that you remand him to the Avenger’s custody. That’s the name of the group of us who were fighting Loki. If we still have Thor and his strength, with Loki’s skills and his inside knowledge, I think we stand a pretty good chance of saving the universe.” 

“If you think you can force Loki to do anything against his will…” Odin started. Then he looked at the searing look that Frigga was sending his way, “short of an Infinity Stone, let me dissuade you of that thought.”

“And I think you give Loki too little credit if you think I’d have to force him into this. If you think that your son doesn’t want to save the universe, make up for his actions and get vengeance on the people who tortured and manipulated him, you don’t know your son at all.” Tony shot back.

“Perhaps your right,” Odin said, but he was looking straight at Loki with a searching glance that Loki had never seen before, “and it may be that I never will. But this seems like my best chance. I will agree to your terms including having Thor there to both help and keep an eye on his… on Loki.”

With two deafening taps of Gungnir onto the ground, the sentence was set. They had done it. No, Anthony had done it. Loki was in awe, frustrated and giddy all at the same time. He looked over at Anthony who was grinning a mile wide. Loki wanted nothing more than to kiss him for what he had done. No one had ever stood up to Odin for him, not really. But here Anthony was, proving once again that he was truly unique. A ray of light shining out of all the darkness he’d been through, hopefully guiding him towards something better. 


	27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

Months later saw Loki laying on the couch in Anthony’s workshop that the man had replaced just for him, grumbling all the while about replacing something that was perfectly fine just because Loki had a leather fetish. The man in question was currently bringing to life whatever brilliant design had come to his mind that forced him to get up at 4am. Loki was reading and idly toying with the bracelet on his wrist.

The bracelet had been the only parameter of Odin’s punishment. Loki had kept full control of his magic, but he had to wear the bracelet to ensure that he couldn’t hide from Heimdall’s sight. Wherever he went, Asgard would be able to check in on him. All told, it wasn’t a completely unreasonable requirement. Anthony had said the bracelet, with its burnished gold and intricate runes, was actually quite pretty, before he went ahead and started trying to figure out how to get the thing off Loki. He hadn’t succeeded; the inventor would add a ‘yet’ to that statement, but they both knew it was more curiosity than seriousness.

“Hey Bambi, you ok over there?” Anthony asked. Loki released the bracelet and looked up to see Anthony smiling uncertainly at him. 

“Yes, Anthony. I am fine.” Loki said, barely able to stop himself from rolling his eyes. His lover was adorably concerned. “We could both use some food, however.” 

“Already? We just ate…” Anthony looked up at the clock, then snorted. “Ok, it was thirteen hours ago, but I’ve gone way longer without food.”

Loki rolled his eyes, got up from the couch and walked over to tug on the back of Anthony’s t-shirt to pull him upstairs.

“Just give me ten… no, a half hour. I was just in the middle…” Anthony protested.

“If you had truly been in the middle of something, you would have never noticed me to ask if I was well, but nice try.” Loki patted Anthony’s shoulder patronizingly while he continued to grumble.

Oh, how the tides had turned. Yes, Ms. Potts would be the first to say that Anthony was always the one who needed to be taken care of, reminded when to eat and sleep and all those other inconvenient activities that kept one alive. But in the majority of their relationship thus far, Anthony had been the caretaker. 

After his sentence had been determined and he had been able to leave Asgard with Anthony and Thor, Loki should have been relieved; should have been able to relax. That was a major hurdle cleared and there was no hard timeline for stopping Thanos. But Loki had been like a man possessed; he had worked day and night on what he considered to be the first step in defeating Thanos. So it had been Anthony to have to remind Loki to eat and sleep and take a break from working once in a while.

“Hey,” Anthony said, nudging Loki’s shoulder. Loki startled, looking around and realizing that they were standing in the kitchen. He wondered how long he had been lost in his own memories. It happened, on occasion, possibly due to some lingering effects of what the Mind Stone had done to him, but Loki hadn’t wanted to bring it up with Frigga to confirm; hadn’t even talked to her since she had been so very helpful at his trial. 

“My apologies, I was just thinking.” Loki smiled at Anthony before busying himself putting together some sandwiches. 

“We’re going to find her,” Anthony said. Proving that he could read Loki’s mind almost as often as the reverse. 

Yes,  _ her _ . One of the loose ends of the frayed knot that was Loki’s brain, but the main one for now. His sister, Nebula. 

It wasn’t that Loki hadn’t thought about Nebula before his trial in Asgard; that was far from the truth. Instead, he had pushed those nagging worries into a dark corner until he could deal with them. Of course, once everything had been mostly settled, those concerns had come roaring back in full force. 

The first order of business had been to do a thorough examination of his feelings, not an activity Loki was overly fond of. But, he had needed to determine if his fondness for her was genuine or a result of the Mind Stone. There were some conflicting memories there, some built by the Mind Stone, but most, the ones where they were close, where he could remember that small ache in his heart only for her, those were all after he had been changed. He was forced to come to the conclusion, that yes, his feelings weren’t the result of any artifice; he truly cared for her.

However, Loki could not determine if Nebula felt the same way without actually speaking to her. After all, she had been one of those who had been ordered to break him before they resorted to the Mind Stone. She, like the other ‘children’, had been Thanos’s for long before Loki showed up. Their interactions could have all been set up by the titan to lull him further into compliance. It wouldn’t make her any less of a victim in the end; she had still been taken as a child, however much she had come to adjust to her surroundings. But Loki couldn’t say that it wouldn’t make him feel differently about her if she had been a willing participant in his manipulation. He really hoped that wasn’t the case. 

Loki wouldn’t be able to get the answers he craved until he found her. And it didn’t matter what she answered, he would still offer her the chance at helping them; at being free; at getting vengeance against Thanos. He was relatively certain she would take it. He was pretty sure, at least, that her overblown dedication was compensation for the vulnerability she felt, especially when compared to her ‘siblings’. In many ways, she had been the most ruthless while at the same time the weakest. 

Loki just needed to find her. 

So, Loki and Anthony’s days were a frustrating mix of frantic preparation and periods of aching boredom. Neither of them could come up with new ideas for where the Stones or Nebula could be and how to find them every single day. So, it was during one such latter period that Loki and Anthony were playing chess. They were interrupted by the all-too familiar sound of the bi-frost connecting, signalling that Thor had returned from his recent scouting trip. As he always needed to do when preparing to speak with Thor, Loki steeled himself; they were still not quite on comfortable terms.

“Bro...Loki!” Thor greeted. Loki sighed; at least he was trying. “Anthony!”

“What is it, Thor? I’m seconds away from embarrassing Anthony with how quickly I’ve managed to win this round.” 

“No you aren’t!” Anthony protested, examining the board closely. His shoulders slumped when he spotted Loki’s play. “Shit, how did I not see that? Damn it! I don’t have the attention span for chess! We’re playing something else next time! Battleship! I know I can beat you at that!”

“You can try!” Loki offered. 

“The pieces don’t move in Battleship, and I can keep track of what I’ve done. Ideal scenario really…” Anthony trailed off, “oh yeah, Thor, welcome back, buddy. Where were you again?”

“Xandar, some Ravagers were there getting a contract on some orb thing, but one of them was sure they had seen Nebula... blue skinned, angry female android?” Thor responded excitedly. 

“Sounds like our girl!” Anthony said cheerfully.

“Tell me where.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you didn't think we'd forgotten about Nebula!


	28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nebula's POV!!! I've been so excited for this one!

“What?” Nebula growled as there was a terse knock on her door. No one came to her quarters, not anymore. 

The door swung open and Ebony Maw and Promixa Midnight were standing in her doorway. It was an odd sight. Generally, they were well set in their little groups, Maw with Cull Obsidian, Proxima with Corvus Glaive and Nebula with… 

Gamora, of course, did her own thing, too good for a partner. But no, that wasn’t quite right, was it? She and Nebula had spent the majority of their lives paired together; it had only been a short while that Loki had been around, everything else had been fabricated. But it was still so difficult to parse those memories apart. She had far more control of them than any organic being would, her brain was mostly machine at this point. It would be so easy to remove the false memories or even just move them to a separate data file, one that didn’t come up as long-term memory, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. 

“Are you going to say something or keep standing around like idiots?” Nebula snapped. 

“We’ve both run into Loki, recently.” Ebony Maw started. 

Nebula’s insides turned cold. What was that fool doing? He was well rid of them; with his magic they couldn’t track him. He had taken off without the slightest backward glance, not that she could blame him. But why would he start showing up now, months after he’d been freed?

None of them knew how it had happened. Loki had been punished for losing his duel and, like all but Nebula, had been dispatched once again to retrieve their stones. It hadn’t been more than a week before Nebula was struck by a massive pain in her skull. She had collapsed right in front of Thanos. She didn’t know what was happening, couldn’t think beyond the pain. Then it was as if some barrier broke and she was flooded by duel sets of memories, a life with Loki and without. 

When Nebula could finally stand again, she looked at her father and could tell that he knew exactly what had happened. To say Thanos had been furious was an understatement in the extreme. She believed that what truly infuriated him was that now Nebula, and likely all the rest of them, knew as well. Knew he had used the Mind Stone not just on Loki, but on them. Something he had specifically sworn he would not do. He had always been proud of how he had earned their loyalty. This spat in the face of everything they had given him. 

Gamora had been particularly furious. She stormed in a few days later, back from wherever she had been, to scream and rail at their father. All he had said was that it was for the greater good. That they needed all the fighters they could get and sometimes unsavory means must be used. Nebula could now remember that she had suspected Gamora of pulling away from Thanos and his plan, of working against them in secret. She wondered how much of that, if anything, had been affected by the Mind Stone. 

“And?” She asked her visitors tersely, remembering that she was expected to respond. 

“He had interesting things to say…” Maw looked over at Proxima before continuing. “I don’t believe he was aware that we knew the Mind Stone’s hold had broken. He tried to feel us out to see if he could sneak back into the fold.”

No, Loki was too smart for that. He would never break free only to come crawling back to Thanos like a dog. Even if he wasn’t smart, he had far too much pride. No, this was a trick. Loki was good at those. The question was, who was the trick for?

“So, what did you do?” Nebula growled. Anger was so much easier than fear, than concern. It wasn’t hard to bring that to the forefront and mask everything else. She was always angry now.

“We fought,” Proxima responded with a smirk.

“He got away you mean or you would have lead with the fact that you killed or caught him.” Nebula sneered. “Do I really have to do everything myself?”

“You think you can catch him? Defeat him? You never have before.” Maw mocked.

“You’re relying on false information. I’ve never truly faced him. Just watch me.”

“And what will you do when you have him?” Proxima asked. 

“Bring him to Father, of course.” Nebula said with total conviction. They would make their own assumptions as to what would happen then. 

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/

Nebula wondered if Loki would take the bait. If Loki could even hear about the bait. But she wasn’t left wondering for long. She felt, rather than heard, Loki appear behind her; there was a sort of wave in the air when he teleported. He didn’t approach, so Nebula turned around. 

It was odd to see Loki again. He looked very different. Yes, he had a color scheme, still all green and black, with that pale skin, high cheekbones and black hair. But he looked, softer somehow; there was something in the way he held himself, in his expression. She didn’t realize how much she had hoped that Loki would still feel… something, until she saw that expression. 

“Nebula,” Loki said neutrally, nodding at her.

“Loki,” Nebula copied him. 

Loki smiled then, just slightly and held out his arms. “You wanted me here, so here I am.”

“I thought you’d know; I figured you’d take the bait anyways.” Nebula smirked. “I’m a little jealous, you went to see everyone else before me.”

“Not Gamora,” Loki pointed out, “but with all of them out looking for the stones, they were a bit easier to find.”

“Why were you looking in the first place? Is it revenge you’re after?” Nebula asked, hoping that if it was, it wasn’t against her. Boasts aside, she would definitely have a hard time taking Loki on.

“Trying to figure that out, actually. Do you know why I left?” Loki asked.

“Something broke the hold of the Mind Stone over you, over us. We don’t know what.” Nebula couldn’t resist adding in the ‘us’.

“So, Thanos had messed with your memories as well?” Loki’s face was so neutral; Nebula knew it meant that he didn’t want to show what he was feeling. She didn’t like that he suspected that she could lie to him like that. But, she supposed, he really had no reason to believe otherwise. Their entire relationship was built on a lie.

“Yes, my head felt like it was going to split open and suddenly I had two sets of memories: one where you were my brother and one where you weren’t.” Nebula responded.

Loki let out a breath, so much tension flooded out from him and he actually grinned. It startled Nebula so much she almost stumbled. She’d never seen a smile like that on Loki’s face before. It wasn’t predatory, wasn’t bitter; it was just… happy. 

“I had really hoped that was the case.” Loki said, taking a tentative step forward. Nebula stayed where she was for now. “So, now that your thoughts are your own. How do you f… what do you think of me?”

The last minute change of wording was amusing. Loki rarely let something slip like that. Nebula knew, then, that she had the power here. Loki wanted her for something; wanted her to do it willingly. Part of her wanted to agree immediately, just to see that smile again. The other part knew she needed to play this safe, smart. 

“I think that I do still know you; I certainly know why you never returned to Thanos. Your loyalty had been bought with false coin. What I don’t know is why you are looking for me.”

“Nebula, Thanos hurt me, a lot. But I believe he’s hurt you so much worse. I know you are conflicted about serving him. You can’t think after what he’s done to us that he’s anything but evil. So help me. Help me stop him.” Loki took a few more steps forward, outright pleading with her.

Nebula laughed bitterly. “As if it is so easy. What are you going to do? Kill him?”

“Eventually? Possibly. But I’d rather just foil his plan. Save the universe.” Loki shrugged modestly.

“You’re going to try to get to the Stones before he does,” Nebula guessed, gasping. As if that was possible. “You’ll never manage it.”

“I’m not alone.” Loki said, a smile once again touching his lips.

Yes, Nebula had almost forgotten. Loki had a real family; a real brother and parents and a home. Thanos hadn’t destroyed all that when he took Loki. Not like he had for the rest of them. It hurt. Loki was already gone; she had already accepted that, but it still hurt. 

“There’s a team of warriors on Midgard, you met one of them actually, they’re helping me. I think that with your help, we can actually do it.” Loki insisted.

Met one of them? Nebula thought back. “That Terran you were at the restaurant with? I thought you were just using him to get to the Tesseract.”

Loki grinned. “I thought I was too. I was wrong.”

“Really?” Nebula wrinkled her nose. There was no accounting for taste. “Ok, so you have a bunch of Terrans. That’s not much to go on. What about Asgard?”

Loki’s face shuttered. “Thor, their prince, is part of the team. He’s been doing what he can to search the realms now that the bifrost has been repaired. But otherwise, I’ve cut ties with Asgard. Fortunately, these Midgardians are far more sturdy than the rest of their kind. They’ll do their part, I assure you.”

Not his brother anymore, huh? Nebula could clearly remember Loki calling out to his brother for help between screams. A lot had certainly changed. With her, too. Remembering torture had never made her sick before and yet…

“What do you need from me?” Nebula asked then. 

“Be my sister again; help me.” Loki smiled tentatively. “You have to admit, we did work brilliantly together.”

Nebula snorted. “I work brilliant with everyone. Before you, it was Gamora.”

Loki frowned. “I haven’t seen her; not sure I would approach her if did. I can’t imagine anything dragging her from Thanos’s side.”

“Leave Gamora to me,” Nebula said. Somehow, she didn’t think it would be nearly as hard as Loki suspected. “So tell me, brother, what’s the plan?”

With those words Loki grinned widely and leapt forward to seize Nebula and pull her into a tight hug. She took a moment before wrapping her arms around him, just long enough for her to grab one of her daggers. Just before she was able to dig it into his side, he spun grabbing her arm. She just barely managed to grab his free wrist before  _ his _ dagger went in her belly. They stood there for a moment, breathing heavily, not letting one another go. 

“Tie?” Loki offered. 

Nebula grunted, but let go of his wrist. She did the same. Loki chuckled then, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and actually kissing her lightly on the forehead. Nebula felt a warmth in her breast that was wholly unfamiliar, but soothing and light. 

“Now, what do we have here?” A very familiar voice interrupted their cozy scene. They startled, pulling away from one another and turned to see Gamora striding out from behind one of the surrounding rocks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun Dun Duuuuunnnnn...


	29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the long delay on this chapter. Work blew up on me and I wanted to get back my chapter buffer before I started posting here again, which is why I decided to post Unmarked for a bit since it was already finished. 
> 
> But here we are! The moment you've been waiting for, the Gamora confrontation...

“Gamora,” Loki greeted cautiously. “It seems that once again you are paying more attention to what I’m up to than finding the Soul Stone.”

“Oh, I found the location of the Soul Stone,” Gamora volunteered. 

Loki knew his mouth had to be hanging open, but he couldn’t help it. Not only had she found the most elusive of the stones, but she was just volunteering that information? 

“Why would you tell us this? You had to have heard at least the end of our conversation. You know I’ve agreed to help him against Thanos.” Nebula asked, but she didn’t seem nearly as surprised as Loki was; that was quite interesting.

“I don’t like you,” Gamora said to Loki.

“Thank you?” Loki offered, nonplussed. “Feeling’s mutual?”

Nebula snorted.

“But Thanos needs to be stopped. Even before he messed with us all with the Mind Stone I knew that. I’ve been working and planning against him for years now.” Gamora said.

Once again, Loki was surprised. Gamora had been the most die-hard of them all; Thanos’s closest child. But then, that’s what the false memories were telling him; he didn’t actually know Gamora. Nebula, at least, he had months worth of actual memories as well as the fake ones. With Gamora, he didn’t know much more than Thanos’s artificial sibling rivalry. 

“I thought you had.” Nebula acknowledged. Well, did wonders never cease?

Gamora too seemed surprised by this revelation. “You did? And you never told Thanos? Why not? You’ve always looked for every opportunity to one up me.”

“You’re my sister. More than anything, certainly more than Thanos, that is what I’ve always wanted.” Nebula shrugged with a crooked smile. “With what Thanos did, I was lucky enough to gain a brother. But you were just more ostracized and I lost you. Maybe I’m selfish, but I want both.”

Nebula’s confession tugged at Loki’s heart. A child, more than anything else, craves love and acceptance. He didn’t know how and when exactly Nebula came to be in Thanos’s possession, but he knew she had been very young. She had never really grown out of needing that; then again, had Loki?

“Before Thanos, I had just lost my entire family, but at least I have a sister,” Loki said, smiling at Nebula. “I wouldn’t say no to two.” He finished looking over at Gamora.

The green-skinned woman snorted. “We’ll see about sisters,” She said to Loki, but she had a softer smile for Nebula. Loki didn’t care one way or another, really, but Nebula did, and right at this moment, he would do just about  _ anything _ for Nebula. He also couldn’t deny that Gamora’s help would go a long way. 

“So, strategy then.” Loki started. “You two can go retrieve the Soul Stone. We’ve been working on the locations of the Power and Time stones. I believe the Time Stone is somewhere on Earth, but I haven’t been able to lock on to it’s signature. Something has been blocking me.”

“We can’t go after the Soul Stone, not yet.” Gamora interjected. “Thanos has loaned Nebula and I out to Ronan the Accusor.”

“Loaned? Like property?” Nebula snarled. 

“Yes. Ronan knows the location of the Power Stone, we are to help him retrieve it.” Gamora said neutrally, not reacting to the loaning comment at all. Loki definitely understood Nebula’s distaste.

“Why not send Proxima and Corvus, then? They were the ones tasked with finding the Power Stone.” Loki asked.

“Ronan would only work with Thanos’s best; that’s us.” Gamora said, this time with a slight smile. 

“Damn it!” Nebula cursed.

“No, this is good. You two can help Ronan, but steal the stone from him. Then you can get the Mind and Reality Stones right from underneath Thanos’s nose. Tell me where the Soul Stone is; the Avengers and I will retrieve that and then all we need is to track down the exact location of the Time Stone on Earth. We already have the Space Stone secured. This is it; we can actually do this!” Loki was startled to realize just how possible, how close they really were. It wouldn’t be a picnic, but it was right there for the taking.

“There’s a… snag, with getting the Soul Stone.” Gamora started.

“Yes?”

“There’s a guardian and a price.” Gamora started. 

“What price?” Nebula asked, eyes narrowed.

“A soul for a soul; and not just any soul, someone you love.” Gamora said softly.

Brown eyes in a grinning face came to Loki’s mind first. He quickly batted the image away. It was far too soon for that to be entering his mind. But that still was a stiff price. Even with their current level of distance and discomfort, Loki still couldn’t imagine trading Thor or Frigga for the stone. 

But Loki was struck with an idea; it was a terrible one, but it wasn’t as if Loki was a good person. He was merely a selfish one who rather enjoyed the universe he lived in and wanted to get revenge on someone who didn’t have that universe best interests at heart. But he was also currently romantically involved with someone who was very much a good person at heart, despite what the man himself thought. What would Tony think of him for this? Would he think it was worth it? Loki would just have to find out after the fact.

So Loki related the plan to Gamora and Nebula. They would go with Ronin and get the Power Stone. Then they would go straight to obtaining the Soul Stone, with an excuse to Thanos that they had recently found its location and wanted to get the jump on it. When they had the two stones, they would bring them back to Thanos, but take his stones out from under his nose. 

They’d have the Power Stone at their disposal, if necessary, but somehow Loki didn’t think it would be. Thanos had never kept the Mind Stone particularly close. It was always locked up, certainly, but his focus has been on getting the remaining ones. Loki could just bet that the Reality Stone was now with it. That just left the Time Stone, and if Loki knew his mortal, he could just bet Tony was working on the location of that as they spoke.

“There’s just one small detail you’re forgetting.” Gamora said as Nebula was nodding along with the plan.

Loki huffed. It was his plan, he wasn’t forgetting a thing.

“And that would be?”

“The gauntlet. You need it to wield all the stones in unity, which would be the only force capable of destroying them. It’s currently in the vault of Asgard. You said that you’ve broken ties with Asgard so how are you going to go about getting it?” Gamora smiled superiorly. 

Loki snorted. “That? It’s a fake. Odin doesn’t have a gauntlet. He just wants the Nine Realms to think he does. It even has fake Infinity Stones embedded in it.”

The smile fell off Gamora’s face and Loki felt a very satisfying thrill at that. Damn it, they really needed to stop this if they were going to be working together. 

“Thor is on his way to Nidavellir as we speak. Eitri has the plans for the gauntlet, so we just need it to be made.”

“Sounds like you may have thought of everything,” Gamora acknowledged.

“Just because I am the God of Chaos, does not mean I don’t understand the value of a well executed plan. I’m not Thor for Norn’s sakes.”

Even Gamora chuckled at that. It was far more satisfying than one-upping her, actually. It gave Loki some hope for their future relationship. But in order to have anything of the sort, they needed to survive trying to save the universe first. Once their plans were in place, Loki nodded to Gamora, squeezed Nebula’s hand for luck and teleported back to Midgard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, we totally cheated and had Gamora get the details about the soul stone, but really it seemed odd that she had been able to find out the location but not any details about it so I feel justified in that change.


	30. Chapter Thirty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this is a fun chapter, a nice break from the angst we've been running on. Oh! And Bruce! There hasn't been nearly enough Bruce in this fic!
> 
> Enjoy!

When Loki got back he looked like a kid at Christmas; well, a very bloodthirsty kid at a very messed up Christmas, anyways. Not only did they have Nebula, but Gamora as well. Tony knew next to nothing about Gamora, but having someone else on their side was never a bad thing. And she sounded pretty badass from what Loki related. What was more, she knew where the Soul Stone was and was on her way with Nebula to get the Power Stone. Everything was coming together so well that Tony just knew that they needed to hit a snag somewhere. 

The snag, of course, was the Time Stone. Loki knew that it was on Earth. Nothing Tony could find backed that up, but Loki would not be swayed. Magic, was his inevitable response. Which forced Jarvis to have to note the fifty-third time Tony said that he hated magic. The tally was growing with a quickness. 

After much poking and prodding, Tony managed to convince Loki to allow Dr. Banner, Bruce to his friends, Brucie, Big Green or some other terrible nickname to Tony, into the lab with them. Loki was still nervous around Bruce. Tony suspected it had something to do with the unpredictability of the Hulk. Loki loved being unpredictable, but he hated when others were the same. Of course, it was pretty easy to predict when the Hulk was going to show up, you just had to not piss Banner off, maybe not poke him with sharp objects like Tony was currently doing.

“Would you stop that?” Loki hissed, turning wide eyes over to assess Bruce’s face for any sign of green.

“It’s fine, Loki. I wouldn’t let myself be around Tony if I couldn’t handle small, annoying things.” Bruce said with a mild smile.

“Hey!” Tony yelped. Now that was just uncalled for. Loki snorted and relaxed a bit. 

“So, you’ve been concentrating on finding the magical signature of the Time Stone, right?” Bruce asked Loki. 

Loki nodded. “Yes, using both the Space Stone and the Mind Stone as a base, they all have a similar signature. I can sense another with that signature here on Earth, and by process of elimination, I know it must be the Time Stone. However, there is some sort of magical field that is scrambling the signature so that I cannot pinpoint it to an exact location.”

“Ok, that’s good.” Bruce said, going through the various files that Shield had put together on the subject.

“No, Brucie, actually that’s bad. You see, we actually do want to find the location of the Time Stone. That’s kind of what we’ve been working on here,” Tony snarked. 

Bruce was unphased. “Yes, but you see, based on what Loki’s told me, I’m betting that the Time Stone also gives off gamma radiation like the Tesseract does.”

“And how is that good? I mean… gamma radiation…” Tony trailed off with a hand wave towards Bruce. Gamma radiation caused the Hulk. And while Tony was a Hulk fanboy, most people were not, Bruce included. 

“It’s nothing to that extent. Low-levels only, nothing that would affect humans, but far higher than anything that occurs naturally.” Bruce explained. “So, my thinking is: what if the person who has the stone is like Loki, tapped into the magic and guarding it that way? They may not know to try to block the gamma signature and we can find it that way.”

“Hmmm, it is an interesting theory. However, to my knowledge, Earth doesn’t have sorcerers,” Loki responded.

“And when was the last time you really checked?” Tony asked.

“Early 12th century?” Loki guessed. 

“And you don’t think that things could have possibly changed in that time?” Tony suggested. “I mean you were woefully unprepared for how technologically advanced we petty humans had become, especially me.”

Loki rolled his eyes.  “Yes, and what a lovely surprise it was.”

Loki bent in then to kiss Tony lightly on the lips. Tony was a bit surprised that Loki would do that with Bruce around, but he couldn’t say he minded. It wasn’t like they had been hiding anything. 

“You both have a point, however. Instead of searching for the Time Stone’s signature, I could search for other sources of magic around Midgard. You two could follow this gamma radiation speculation and we could see what fruits we reap.” Loki offered.

“Ooooh, a competition. What do I get if we win?” Tony asked, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

“The ability to save the universe,” Loki provided, deadpan.

“That’s boring.” Tony pouted.

“Nice to see where your priorities are, Tony.” Bruce snorted. 

“How about my eternal gratitude and regards?” Loki suggested. 

“I’d rather have your eternal ass…” Tony muttered. 

Bruce turned red and sputtered; he decided suddenly that he needed to be on the other side of the room. Tony and Loki just snickered. 

“You do realize you have that already?” Loki whispered in Tony’s ear. Tony laughed and looked over at Bruce who was very obviously not looking at them with a suspiciously red face. 

“Well sure, but treats are always nice,” Tony said slyly.

“Fine then, if you find the Time Stone first, you get a treat.” Loki shook his head, but Tony was pretty sure it was with fondness. “It’s like having a puppy.”

“A genius puppy who is absolutely going to find the Time Stone before you do.” Tony said, not taking the slightest bit of offense.

“Then run along, pup.” Loki said, patting Tony patronizingly on the head. 

Tony just laughed, kissed Loki quickly, and hurried over to wear Bruce was calibrating the scanners for gamma radiation. He was totally going to win this. 

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/

It’s a fucking tie. No shit, the GPS signal finally settled onto a point on the map and Tony calls over to Loki when suddenly Loki is shouting out a long series of numbers. Bruce laughs and points to where the latitude and longitude of their signal is displayed. Funnily enough, it corresponds precisely with the numbers Loki had been spouting. Damn it. 

“Since you didn’t establish anything for when you win, I still get my treat.” Tony said petulantly. Loki responded by scratching him behind the ear. Tony was mildly tempted to kick out his leg like a dog, just to make Loki laugh, but Tony didn’t think it would be quite worth giving him the satisfaction. 

“Um.. do I have to be here for this?” Bruce asked. 

“My apologies, Dr. Banner, thank you so much for your help, but I believe Anthony and I can take it from here.” Loki nodded to him. 

“Works for me, I have no interest mixing myself up in more magic stuff. Let me know if you need more labtime or something smashed.” Bruce waved at the two of them and then walked out of the lab. 

“Magic on Midgard,” Loki hummed with interest. “Who would have thought? I wonder where they’ve been all this time? Not involving themselves even in extraordinary matters like Thor’s arrival or mine.”

“Maybe they are one of those sects that believe in keeping secret and out of things unless it directly involves them. Or maybe they have other priorities.” Tony offered.

“That’s absurd. What could be a bigger priority than protecting your world? Maybe staying out of Midgardian matters, I could understand. But I used magic, here on this realm in order to steal an Infinity Stone. They have one, they know precisely how dangerous and how powerful they are, so where were they?” Loki argued.

“No idea. Wanna go ask them yourself?”

“Oh, yes, let’s.” Loki said with a grin.

So it looked like they were on their way to 177A Bleeker street to meet whoever these mysterious magic people were who managed to obtain an Infinity Stone, keep it hidden and yet not get involved. Tony looked over at Loki, his own alien with years of history and magic, who was once again bouncing like a child about to unwrap a long wished for present. Yes, this was going to be very interesting. 


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we lost some people in the slight hiatus, very sad. 
> 
> But, in happy news, Son of Chaos is finished! Doing a few rounds of editing but the story is done and I am so very pleased! You can see there's a final chapter count and everything. Keep in mind Chapter 35 is the actual final chapter. 36 is an epilogue. 
> 
> So on with the story, let's see how Loki and Tony do at the Sanctum Santorum, shall we?

Loki and Anthony had been staring at a very unassuming door for several minutes before Anthony spoke. 

“Are you sure this is the right place?”

“We both came up with this same location completely independently. It would strain credulity for it to be incorrect,” Loki responded, but he had to admit, the man had a point.

The building they were standing in front of was very unassuming. It was white marble and in a style that blended perfectly with the neighborhood. Loki never would have given it a second glance. Then again, as this order’s policy seemed to be remaining unknown, this did make sense. The question was…

“How do we contact them?” Loki asked.

Anthony looked over at Loki like he was insane, or slow. “Um… knock on the door?”

“You can’t just knock on a magic user’s door! That’s how idiots get killed!” Loki spluttered.

“Like booby traps? Can you sense, and subsequently disarm, those?”

“If I could sense them, they wouldn’t be very good traps now would they?”

“So, how would you normally go about doing this then?” Anthony asked impatiently.

“I wouldn’t. I would never face an unknown mage on their home ground. I would catch them unawares in neutral territory,” Loki explained. Really, did Midgardians know nothing of strategy anymore?

“Well, since we have no idea if these people ever leave this place, much less when, and time is of the essence…”

The ridiculous mortal just knocked on the green door in front of them. Loki lunged and threw an arm around Anthony’s waist to pull him away from any potential blasts. Anthony squirmed in Loki’s hold as several quiet moments passed, but he remained firm. Time delay spells were a common lure. Finally, the door opened and a head popped into view.

“Yes?” The accent was Chinese, as was the face that came into view; Loki had been brushing up on the various Midgardian races and ethnicities. Though, to him, the portly man looked Vanir. 

“Hey there! Tony Stark, nice to meet you. I’m going to assume you know who I am?” Anthony started in his usual effusive style. 

“Yes,” the man said before promptly shutting the door. Loki and Anthony stared at it in surprise for a few moments.

“Well, I have to admit, that’s a new one,” Anthony said. 

Loki knocked on the door this time. The man showed his face once again, looking even less friendly, if possible. “Do you know who I am?” Loki asked then.

“Yes,” the man confirmed before once again slamming the door in their faces. 

“You would think he’d be the slightest bit intrigued about what a billionaire Avenger is doing with an alien supervillain on his doorstep,” Tony huffed. Loki raised an eyebrow at him. “Former supervillain,” Tony corrected.

“They may take their non-involvement even more seriously than we feared,” Loki mused. 

Anthony knocked again; the man appeared again. Loki felt like he was in some time loop.

“Aren’t you even mildly curious as to why we have come to see you?”

“Mildly? Yes. Enough to trust either of you in the sanctum? No,” The man then started to close the door, but Loki had had enough of that. A little spell caused the door to fly open, out of the man’s hand, and Loki just walked right in.

“Uh… looks like you’re inviting us in anyways. Yeah, this should really help those peaceful negotiations were were hoping for, huh, Loki?” Anthony asked pointedly. 

“You can’t negotiate if you don’t make it through the door,” Loki responded airily.

“That sounds like a Thor quote,” Tony accused.

Loki winced slightly; it was actually. But it was true. Thor couldn’t help stumbling upon some good sense every now and then. 

“Please, be welcome to the Sanctum Santorum. Do not touch anything. If you do, no one will ever find your bodies.” The man said this in a completely deadpan tone that Loki had a hard-time judging. It could be well delivered sarcasm or complete honesty; Loki sensed it was the latter. 

But Loki could understand the man’s ferocity as they made their way into the building, and he saw the vast number of relics stored in this place. Unlike outside, where Loki couldn’t feel the slightest twinge of magic; this room was practically humming with it. Loki’s fingers were practically itching with the desire to study, and possibly borrow, some of the relics, but he could feel the dour mage’s glare upon him. 

“So, not to complain about your hosting skills, because let’s be honest, we’re trespassing, but got someplace we can sit and chat comfortably?” Anthony asked casually. 

The man studied both Anthony and Loki for a few moments; obviously weighing his desire to be inhospitable versus the benefit of getting two people he obviously distrusted in a room separate from these very valuable and fascinating relics. Finally, he motioned for the two interlopers to follow him into a very cosy looking sitting room. 

Loki and Anthony sat down and then shared a look before they got started. The look conveyed to Loki that he and Anthony were on the same page. They weren’t going to get anywhere with this sort of man by being subtle or beating around the bush. Fortunately, neither of them were much for subtlety anyway.

“So, you claim to know who we are, might we know who you are?” Loki started politely. 

“Wong,” the man replied shortly. 

“Nice to meet you. This is Loki and you can call me Tony. What do you do here, Wong?”

“This is the Sanctum Santorum, one of several placed around the globe to protect our reality. I am merely a temporary watchman. My question is how did you find it?” Wong asked.

“Magic,” Loki replied at the same time Anthony said, “science.”

They glared at one another momentarily before grinning. 

Wong looked between the two of them suspiciously, but left their comments at that. 

“But, protecting our reality is good. That’s what we were hoping for actually,” Anthony started. 

“We need the Time Stone,” Loki said. They may as well get this over with. 

Wong’s eyebrows rose, the first sign of an actual expression they had seen on his face. 

“You believe we have that?” Wong asked.

“Counting on it, actually. That’s how we found you, by tracking the gamma radiation it gives off,” Tony responded.

“So you do have the Space Stone then?” Wong directed this question to Loki.

“I don’t. Anthony does,” Loki replied promptly 

“But you have Anthony,” Wong replied with a raised eyebrow. It wasn’t a question. 

“Hey, no one calls me Anthony, but Loki.” Anthony bristled before visibly realizing how that sounded. “I mean ‘have’ is a strong word. We’re working together.”

Wong nodded doubtfully.

“So, you know I was after the Tesseract. Do you know why? Or more accurately, who sent me?” Loki asked.

Wong frowned. “No, I’m merely one of many.”

Loki gave Wong what Anthony would call the ‘cliffs notes’ version of events. The man listened, silent and stoic. 

“So, yeah. We need the Time Stone so we can destroy all the Infinity Stones and keep the universe from breaking,” Anthony summarized.

“I see,” Wong said with a nod. Just when Loki thought that it couldn’t possibly be this easy, Wong continued, “no.”

“What? I thought your duty was to protect our reality. I feel like this is a huge danger to our reality!” Tony shouted.

“Indeed, however, we have an oath to protect the Time Stone. I cannot allow it to leave our care and certainly not to be destroyed,” Wong explained.

Loki wanted to growl with frustration. “That’s all well and good. But you really only have two options here, give it to us and I will vow to do all in my power to destroy its threat to our universe or Thanos and his children will come take it by force, and you’ll get no such vow from them.”

Wong squinted at both Anthony and Loki before he got up out of his seat. Anthony opened his mouth to protest the exit, but Loki put a hand on his forearm. He suspected this wasn’t the lost cause it seemed.

“I will relay your information to the Sorcerer Supreme. She will make the decision,” Wong said before exiting the room. 

Loki and Anthony sat in silence for a few moments before Anthony turned to Loki and waggled his eyebrows. “He seems to have forgotten that he’s leaving us alone with his stuff.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wong is my new spirit animal (right behind unamused Coulson)


	32. Chapter Thirty-Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we conclude events at the Sanctum Santorum...

Loki seemed far more confident about this whole endeavor than Tony was. This Wong guy was obviously a stick in the mud of epic proportions and was never going to listen to them. So, while the guy was running the info up the chain to his superiors, and Loki was not so discreetly inspecting the odd array of junk they were surrounded by, Tony was dutifully working on Plan B. Unfortunately, one thing the Avengers had learned the hard way when dealing with Loki was that magic wasn’t easy to combat. Sure, you could still take a magic user by surprise, they weren’t omniscient, but that was really the only reliable way to overcome them.

The problem was, as soon as Wong came out and told them ‘no’ he’d be expecting something. He had to know they wouldn’t give up without a fight. So, the element of surprise was not something they could count on. That being said, he did have Loki, which put him magic user vs magic user, but that also made planning hard. Tony still didn’t have a great grasp of everything Loki could do. They’d gone over the basics up through now, but you couldn’t put together a decent plan without all of the variables. Oh, what the hell? It’s not like they weren’t used to winging it anyways. 

Mr. Wizard re-appeared, walking solemnly and mutely towards them. Loki quickly backed away from the display case he had been pawing at. When Wong remained standing, rather than taking a seat, Tony knew what the next words out of his mouth were going to be.

“No,” Wong said.

Ok, word, not words. Tony definitely should have pegged that. This guy brought whole new meaning to the term ‘monosyllabic’.

“No? Just no?” Loki sputtered. “No debate? Negotiation? Nothing?”

“No,” Wong replied. Tony totally called it. Then the man gestured to the door of the room, indicating he wanted them to leave. 

Tony stood. It looked like they were going to have to play Mission Impossible later, Tony decided then. It could be fun, actually. Big magic heist. Seeing where they needed Loki’s magic, integrating it with Tony’s science where they needed, like a big intellectual wedding. Tony realized that was a really odd thought for him to have, then shrugged. Weird things pop into one’s head on occasion when you have the fate of the world on your shoulders. 

“Why?” Loki asked, looking despairing. He was still sitting, practically collapsed in his chair. Tony leaned over and placed a hand on Loki’s shoulder, he was sure that was all the support Loki would be willing to take in front of someone else. Loki turned to him and almost too quick for Tony to catch, winked. Ah, sympathy game. Tony struggled to contain his answering grin. This he could do. 

“Seriously, if you are going to put the entire universe in jeopardy, you could at least give us the why.” Tony played along. 

“Because our entire dimension is what is at risk if we lose the Time Stone. It is one of our best weapons against extraplanar threats.” Wong explained, then actually sighed a bit. “And to protect this reality, certain events need to occur and for that, we need the Time Stone.”

Dimensions, huh? Extraplanar threats? That was all really interesting stuff, and Tony was itching to dig into it more, but at the end of the day, the main, current threat was Thanos. This information wasn’t going to help jack shit against him. Tony looked over at Loki who was making a big show of thinking this new information over. 

“What if we don’t destroy the Time Stone?” Loki offered. The god was absolutely adorable when he was being stubborn.

Wong rose an eyebrow, but he sat down, obviously prepared to listen. Tony sat down as well. How the hell was Loki going to manage that? And would they be opening everyone up to further danger if they managed it? 

“The Time Stone has been guarded here safely for who knows how long. Thanos doesn’t even know it’s here... yet. So, you obviously have it well guarded and haven’t used it indiscriminately,”  Loki said cajolingly. “So what if you  _ lend _ us the Time Stone? We use it to destroy the other stones and then return it to you. Then your ‘certain events’ can still occur. Everybody wins, yes?”

Tony supposed that only one Infinity Stone still existing meant that Thanos couldn’t do the whole culling thing. And if these people really were protecting their dimension by using it, destroying it to defeat Thanos could just dump them into a bigger, hotter, boiling kettle. If they really could use the Gauntlet to destroy all but the Time Stone, it seemed like a fair trade.

“How do we know you would return the stone?” Wong asked, squinting at Loki.

That pissed Tony off. Did the fact that they were trying to save the damn universe not imply that maybe a little trust was in order? “How do we know that you are actually using the Time Stone to save our reality and not for your own nefarious purposes?”

Wong frowned at that. “We don’t have nefarious purposes.”

“I would be willing to make a vow on my magic to return the stone,” Loki said through clenched teeth. 

Tony didn’t know what a vow on Loki’s magic entailed, but it couldn’t be good with that expression. 

Wong sighed again. “Give me a moment, I must provide this new information to the Sorcerer Supreme.”

Wong walked out the door, but this time, he wasn’t silent. Instead he was muttering under his breath. Something about ‘housesitting’, and ‘messenger boy’ and ‘when would strange get here already?’

Tony laughed. Strange was already here; it arrived when a crazy norse god showed up looking for an all powerful space stone, and it hadn’t left. 

“Well, that could have been worse,” Loki admitted. 

“This vow on your magic, thing. That wont hurt you, right?” Tony asked. 

“Not unless I break it. The consequences of that would be,” Loki cringed, “extreme.”

“Please tell me you aren’t speaking from experience.” Tony shuddered. Anything that could make Loki cringe…

But Loki smiled at that. “No, it isn’t something I would ever make a habit of. I’m particularly deft at finding loopholes in promises, but this particular one will likely leave very little wiggle-room. I’ve only risked such the once, when it was in my best interest to fulfil the vow anyways.”

Slippery little snake, Tony thought, but it was ridiculously fond. Tony could appreciate outsmarting people. Especially Loki, who needed all the wins he could get in a backwards place like Asgard. 

It wasn’t too much longer before Wong re-appeared with another wizard in tow. This one was also bald, but female. Tony got a very celtic vibe from her, also a very old serenity that he thought only existed in karate movies. 

“Anthony Stark, Loki Laufeyson,” the woman greeted, nodding at them both. 

Loki went stiff as a board at the woman’s greeting, and Tony could guess why. It was purely a hunch, but Tony was going to speculate that Laufey was Loki’s real father, and Tony knew just how much Loki disliked finding that information out.

“Just Loki, if you please,” the god asked coldly. 

“As you wish,” the woman said politely, thankfully not asking any questions. “You may call me the Ancient One.”

Loki snorted. “You couldn’t possibly be more than sixty.” 

“I am, in fact, just over five hundred years old,” the Ancient One corrected. Loki frowned, appearing to try to study her closer to see if he could tell how she was that much older than the usual Earthian. 

“I am not calling someone half my age ‘Ancient One,’’ Loki said stubbornly. Tony couldn’t help but grin. This was definitely fun.

“My title here is Sorcerer Supreme, if that suits,” the Ancient One replied, still completely unphased by Loki’s rudeness. 

“It remains to be seen how that would compare to elsewhere, but I suppose as a purely Midgardian title…” 

“Loki…” Tony huffed. Really now, there was stubborn and then there was just missing the point. 

“So, I believe you are here to make a decision on our proposal?” Loki asked then, all stiff formality before shooting Tony a look that said clearly, ‘see? I can get back on task.’

“Yes, you see, while I believe that you will return the Stone, if only due to the vow you are willing to make, I would need as a part of that vow, assurances that you will not use the Stone to harm anyone,” the Ancient One continued.

“Nope,” Tony said, and at the same time Loki blurted, “absolutely not.”

The Ancient One just raised an eyebrow.

“I am not risking my power over some chance that destroying the stones causes harm to someone. It’s like Tony said, there has to be some element of trust here, we are trusting that you want the stone to continue to exist for good purposes, you have to trust we’ll use it the same.”

“I am also willing to make a vow on my power that we will not use the Stone except in the direst need to protect our reality.”

“That is decent wording, however, I am aware of how you and Wong obtain your power. It is through tapping into Dimensional Energy, not a personal magic store. That vow would mean nothing to you,” Loki countered. 

The Ancient One smiled slightly, then, and Tony sensed that she was impressed. He had no idea if that was helpful or not, though. 

“A vow on my life then,” the Sorcerer Supreme ceded. 

Loki inclined his head in a conciliatory gesture but said, “I still can’t make that vow to do no harm.”

“How about, instead, you vow to only use the Time Stone with the purpose of destroying the other stones. That will save you from unintended consequences of that destruction, but prevent you from using it for intentional harm,” the Ancient One said.

It sounded good to Tony, pretty clear cut, but with the possible consequences all being on Loki, and with Tony’s lack of magical knowledge, he was going to leave this one to the alien. 

“That is acceptable,” Loki said finally after thinking it over long enough that Tony was starting to get twitchy. 

The Ancient One nodded. She then made several hand gestures and the giant eye necklace she was wearing shifted revealing a glowing green stone. The Time Stone. 

“Use it wisely.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I couldn't work Strange into this fic (though I hope you caught my little shout out to him) ... I wanted to keep the timeline consistent, plus it gave me the opportunity to write Wong and the Ancient One which I enjoyed immensely. I promise more Strange in the future though because I really do love him!


	33. Chapter Thirty-Three

Loki was practically vibrating with adrenaline as they returned to Anthony’s tower; fortunately, he had teleported them straight to the penthouse. Another stone obtained, another step closer to destroying Thanos’s goals and, hopefully, the titan himself. Anthony grinned at him, obviously understanding exactly what Loki was feeling at the moment. It was wonderful and strange. Loki had never had that before; no one had ever really understood him. He’d always been the outcast, the freak. But in just a short while, most of which they had been at odds with one another, Anthony had become the best friend that Loki had ever had. And so much more than that. 

With that thought, Loki pulled Anthony in for a congratulatory kiss. The other man smiled against Loki’s lips before parting them and delving his tongue inside. Loki groaned and pulled their bodies closer together. This, on top of everything else, was almost too good to be true. Loki was tempted to doubt it, but Anthony had proven too many times, in too many ways that he too was in this as much as Loki was. For now, Loki would have to fight his instincts and try to be at peace. 

Anthony pulled away from the kiss, but only to lightly prod Loki towards the bedroom. Loki grinned and walked backwards, not wanting to turn away from the infinitely attractive sight of Anthony Stark with lust and intent written all over his face. After several steps, Loki could feel the edge of the bed hit his legs. Anthony continued his light push and Loki fell onto the mattress willingly. Anthony was right behind him, or right on top of him as the case may be. 

“Sirs,” JARVIS cut in, “my apologies for interrupting.”

Anthony groaned. “But something more important than banging my boyfriend is going on elsewhere, right?”

“I wouldn’t have phrased it quite like that, but yes, sir. Thor has just arrived,” JARVIS replied.

Loki pushed Anthony off of him. The mortal rolled over onto the bed, groaning in disappointment. 

“Consider the mood officially dead,” Loki said then. 

“Noted,” Anthony sighed before hauling himself up as if it was the hardest thing he had ever done. 

“Tell Thor we’ll be right there, J. We just need a moment to get… settled,” Anthony said. 

They both took a few moments to calm down and rearrange their clothing and hair to look like they hadn’t been about to rip one another’s clothes off. Just when Loki thought he might start to be able to warm up to Thor, the oaf did something like this. 

“He probably has the gauntlet, huh?” Tony said after a moment.

“Assuming he was successful in speaking to Eitri, and I have no idea why he wouldn’t be, yes,” Loki replied. 

“So, then we’re just waiting on Nebula and Gamora, huh?”

“Yes, they unfortunately have the bulk of the task since they were sent to Ronan, and I cannot easily infiltrate Thanos’s ship anymore.”

“And why is it that we couldn’t get the Soul Stone?” Anthony asked, face completely guileless, just curious. 

Loki shivered, not really wanting to be reminded of that. Intellectually he knew that Anthony was aware he could be ruthless and deceitful; that hadn’t been all Thanos’s influence. He had earned the title of God of Lies long before that all on his own. But, it was another thing entirely to have that evidence right in front of you. Though Loki believed that Anthony would probably see the necessity of such a cold decision, he couldn’t help but worry that the hero might not look at Loki the same after hearing it.

“It’s protected from magical transportation methods,” Loki lied. “And your Midgardian ships could never get there. It was the only practical way to get the Stone in a reasonable period of time.”

Anthony nodded, taking Loki for his word. Why wouldn’t he? Loki had strived to give his lover no reason to doubt him. As they made their way down to the landing pad level, Loki tried to brush those thoughts aside and focus on the task at hand. 

Thor greeted them both with a gigantic grin on his face. The kind of grin that was so sunny, your own lips wanted to curl up. Fortunately, Loki was well versed in resisting Thor’s charm. He still wasn’t immune, but he could keep the answering smile from his face. Anthony couldn’t, though. To be fair, Anthony’s smile might have been for the shining, golden gauntlet that was held in Thor’s hand. 

“Nice going, big guy.” Anthony said, walking up and clapping Thor on the shoulder companionably. 

“Nidavellir owes its protection and resources to Asgard. It was no big trial,” Thor replied, showing a modesty that Loki had never seen before. Even if it was false modesty, which Loki doubted Thor was capable of, it was more than his erstwhile brother had ever shown in the past. Loki was impressed, despite himself. But, that was a problem for another day. 

Loki held out a hand and Thor passed the glove over without hesitation. Loki blinked in shock for a few moments before looking down to examine the glove. Not the time to be dwelling on when it was last that Thor handed over an object of power without suspicion and reluctance. The gauntlet looked precisely like the one in Asgard’s vaults, but Loki could feel the power in this one. He was as certain as he could be without testing that it was correct. Now they just needed the stones. Once again, nervous excitement rushed through him. 

“Were you both successful in obtaining the Time Stone?” Thor asked then. 

“Yup, we had to promise not to destroy it with the other Stones, and Loki had to make some scary vow on his power, but we got it,” Anthony responded, walking over to his bar to get them drinks. 

“Truly? You made such a vow?” Thor turned wide-eyed to Loki. 

“I had to; they never would have trusted us with the Stone otherwise,” Loki argued. Loki really didn’t want to think about it, but Thor couldn’t drop it. 

“I have heard those can be very dangerous,” Thor continued.

“Despite what you may think, I am capable of keeping my promises, Thor,” Loki spat back at him. 

“How would I know? With so much evidence to the contrary?” Thor shot back. 

Loki swore and a dagger instinctively came to his hand. 

“Children,” Tony admonished. He walked over and handed a glass of scotch first to Loki and then to Thor. Loki downed the scotch and took a couple of steps away to cool down. “Ok, well, you separated after one word, so we’ll call that improvement?”

“If Loki wouldn’t get so defensive,” Thor complained.

“If Thor could keep his fat mouth shut about things that he doesn’t understand,” Loki shot back. 

Tony sighed. “Improvement may have been an understatement. Cool it guys, bask in the moment. We’ve got the glove and two stones. We literally have nothing to do but wait for Nebula and Gamora. Let’s not spend the entire time bickering. Go beat each other up in the gym if you need to.”

“I’d really rather not kill him,” Loki admitted petulantly.

“Ok, well that’s a step in the right direction.” Tony held up his own glass in a toast. Thor smiled.

“I’d never hear the end of it from Frigga,” Loki finished and smirked when both Tony and Thor’s faces fell.

Loki wasn’t nearly as angry with Thor as he had been. He wasn’t even as angry as he made it seem. But Thor still rubbed him the wrong way. He had mostly stopped calling Loki ‘brother’, but he couldn’t seem to help acting like one. It was maddening, and Loki hated feeling like he’d lost something, for all that it was mostly his own choice. 

Loki walked over to get another drink since Midgardian liquor was so weak. 

“Sir, your satellites have detected a craft entering Earth’s orbit,” JARVIS said. 

For a moment, Loki’s heart sank into his stomach as he feared the worst. 

“What kind of craft, JARVIS?” Tony asked immediately.

“A small one, sir. There appear to be only two lifeforms aboard.” 

Loki let out his breath, warmth seeped back into his limbs. It had to be Nebula and Gamora. It had only been a few days; had they really managed to get four stones in the time that it took Anthony and he to get one? They had the advantage of knowing where all the stones were before setting off, but still, it was impressive. 

Anthony was a flurry of activity, he had JARVIS contact the women and told them where they could land. The ship was small enough that it could touch down on the roof of the tower. Then he had to contact various authorities to let them know not to send the military after it. There was nothing Loki could do but wait for the ship to touch down. Still, he raced to the roof, wanting to see Nebula the instant she came out of the ship. His mind was racing with everything that could have happened, thinking through potential contingencies if they hadn’t, in fact, been able to get all four Stones. 

Anthony was massaging his shoulders and whispering increasingly dirty things in his ear to try to make him laugh and relax, when the ship finally touched down. Gamora walked out first. Her clothing was singed, she had a bruise on one cheek and black smudges on her hands and nose, but she was otherwise unharmed. 

Loki held his breath until Nebula followed out behind her, limping slightly and holding her ribs. She too looked like she had walked through fire, black marks across her blue skin. Loki ran up to her and pulled her into his arms. He felt the sharp tip of a knife at his belly, but it didn’t pierce the skin. Loki pulled back to raise a questioning eyebrow at Nebula who rolled her eyes.

“I’m fine, this is barely a scratch. Don’t go all soft on me yet,” Nebula snarled. 

Loki just smiled fondly. “Never.” 

He let her continue to walk towards the stairs for a few steps, falling into place beside her. When she had gotten into a rhythm he stuck his index finger into her side, where she had stopped clutching to try to give the appearance of strength. She yelped and stumbled for a moment. Loki saw movement and noticed that Anthony was walking over to help, a confused frown on his face. Loki shook his head and Anthony backed off quickly. Nebula glared at Loki so hard he was a bit surprised that he didn’t just burst into flames on the spot. But he had accomplished his goals; he had both annoyed Nebula and sent a little magic to make sure that she wasn’t more badly hurt than a few bruised ribs.

“That was just a finger,” he said lightly, and continued ahead to Tony. 

They all made their way silently back to the common floor of the tower. Loki was dying to know if they’d gotten the stones, but there was an unspoken agreement not to ask. Like, they all needed to be sitting, to get the full story before they could really process. Loki sat the women down on the couch and took a seat next to Nebula. Thor sat in a chair to Loki’s right. Tony dutifully brought more drinks and sat across from the couch. 

Before anyone could take more than a sip Tony blurted, “So, did you get them?”

Nebula and Gamora looked at one another for a moment before Gamora pulled out a case that she had stashed in her jacket. Nebula did the same. They opened up their small cases at approximately the same time. Nebula’s case shone with red and yellow light. Gamora’s stones were glowing purple and orange.

“We got them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just two more chapters (and an epilogue) left to go! Are you excited? I'm really excited!


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty! Now we have Gamora's POV and we get the story of how she and Nebula got all 4 stones. 
> 
> I want to apologize in advance if this chapter feels a bit like an exposition dump. You need the story of how they got all the stones, but so much of it is so close to the Guardians of the Galaxy movie that I didn't want to do it in real time. Plus, even though we've had many chapters with POVs outside of Loki and Tony we've never had a chapter without Loki or Tony being present and this would have required several. 
> 
> Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy this peek inside Gamora's head. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. She's never been a favorite of mine, but I really like how this turned out.

Gamora couldn’t believe that she was sitting on a couch, on Terra of all places, telling Loki, of all people, how she and Nebula managed to swipe four Infinity Stones out from under Thanos’s nose. It was a completely impossible scenario that she wouldn’t have believed if she hadn’t been the one to live it. To top off matters, she was recounting everything that had happened to a Terran. A Terran that Loki was apparently romantically involved with, something Gamora still had a hard time with. Then again, Peter Quill was Terran; he was loud, obnoxious and arrogant; but he was also sweet, funny and kind. Gamora wondered if she’d ever see him again.

“We immediately ran into trouble as soon as we boarded Ronan’s ship. It turned out that a group of Ravagers were also looking for the stone. Ronan had deployed his men, but it was too late, one of them had already taken it, a thief named Peter Quill. But fortunately, they knew that he would be selling the stone on Xandar, Ronan sent me-” 

“He sent me first,” Nebula cut in petulantly. 

“And as I told you then, I know Xandar better. I was trying to keep you from getting hurt,” Gamora argued once again.

“I might not have gotten arrested,” Nebula prodded with a grin. 

“Seriously, people! Why do I have to be the mature one around here? You really must be sisters because you fight just like the two of them,” the Terran, Tony Stark, Gamora thought his name was, complained. 

Loki practically growled at the man, but he didn’t reach for a knife as he usually did the moment he was insulted; it must be love. “Tony…” He warned.

“Yeah, yeah, not your brother. But that doesn’t seem to keep you from picking at each other constantly. New Rule: no more petty squabbles in my tower. JARVIS, make a note of it.” 

“Do I include you in that rule, sir? Because I believe you might have some trouble with complying,” came a voice from the ceiling. Stark chuckled. 

Both Gamora and Nebula jumped to their feet, looking around for the spy who had given no trace of their presence until now. 

“Sorry, ladies, forgot to introduce you. This is JARVIS, he’s Just A Really Very Intelligent System I made, who runs my life,” Stark said, as if that explained everything. 

“He’s an artificial construct with an independent consciousness. He has no physical body,” Loki clarified. Now that was very interesting.

Both Nebula and Gamora looked at one another and sat down. They were straying far afield from their explanation and who knew how long they had before Thanos discovered what they had done? They needed to get on with matters. So Gamora went back to her explanation. 

“As Nebula mentioned, in trying to get the stone from Quill, we were arrested by the Nova Corps with two bounty hunters that were trying to collect a substantial prize that the other Ravagers had put on Quill.”

“Oh, he sounds like a swell guy,” Stark snorted. Gamora ignored that. 

“When I was almost killed in prison by a man with a grudge against Ronan for killing his family, I decided to trust Quill, the bounty hunters and that man with the information that I was working against Thanos. I convinced them that I needed to get the stone to Terra in order to destroy it. They, of course, did not want to pass up their substantial paydays, even for the fate of the universe. So, I told them we would double what Quill was promised for the stone and what the bounty hunters were promised for Quill.”

“I’m not sure how well space currency translates, but somehow I suspect I’ll be able to pay up if you send me the details,” Stark interjected. Rich as well? Loki really had found a useful one.

Gamora just nodded; it wasn’t like she knew where Quill and the others were at this point anyway. “We managed to escape and make our way to a small, neutral planet. I contacted Nebula to tell her I had the stone and to relay to Ronan that we would take it to Thanos ourselves, and Thanos would destroy Xandar for him as promised. All this knowing, of course, that Thanos would never get the stone and therefore wouldn’t keep up his end of the deal. Unfortunately, Draxx, the man with the grudge, couldn’t stand that he wasn’t getting his confrontation with Ronan and contacted him. There was a fight, and in the commotion I had to steal the stone from Quill and take off with Nebula. I’m sure he believes I double crossed him.”

And that hurt. Far more than Gamora felt like it should. She wouldn’t go so far as to say she  _ liked _ Quill. But, he had grown on her. She wasn’t sure she would ever forget him putting those headphones over her ears, introducing her to music for the first time as they waited to hear back from Nebula. 

“When all this is over, we could try to find him,” Loki said kindly. Gamora wanted to sneer, she wasn’t used to anything approaching kindness from Loki. But when she looked at him, the look in his eyes made her think that he probably knew more about what she was feeling at the moment than she did. 

She just smiled slightly and moved on with the story. “We checked in with Thanos, told him we had the Power Stone, but had just received word on the location of the Soul Stone. We didn’t want another situation where someone could get to it first so we were heading there directly. He agreed.”

At this, Gamora looked hesitantly at Loki. He looked over at Stark and turned back to Gamora before nodding. The Terran hadn’t noticed the exchange. Not that it mattered if they were going to come out and say it. 

“Before heading to Vormir, we found Corvus Glade and Proxima Midnight, two of our siblings. We told them we needed help to get the Soul Stone. That since we had gotten the Power Stone that they were supposed to obtain, the least they could do is help us with this one. They agreed, enjoying the fact that we needed help.” Gamora sighed.

“We needed them specifically because they were married; they loved each other, in whatever twisted form that takes in beings such as them. The Soul Stone has a guardian and it demands a price. The price is the Soul of someone you love. Proxima never even hesitated; she pushed Corvus off that cliff immediately and so, she had the Soul Stone.”

A vicious thread of guilt twisted in her stomach. It was just as Loki had said. It was nasty but necessary. They could never have convinced those two to turn against Thanos. They had been with him far longer and from a much younger age. There was nothing in them except obedience. But that didn’t make it any easier. They had been victims, as much as Gamora, Nebula and Loki once, even if it was long ago. 

“We still tried,” Nebula cut in. “We tried to convince Proxima to help us, join us. But she would have none of it. I killed her in our fight to get the stone.” 

Thor just looked stern. Loki was cringing like he was waiting for a blow; a guilt on his face that Gamora had never seen before. The Terran was staring at Loki as if he was seeing him for the first time. It made Gamora wince herself.

“Why do I get the impression that this was your idea?” Stark asked darkly.

“Because you know me surprisingly well,” Loki answered. 

Stark’s face twitched. He was seemingly fighting through a series of emotions, but he put his hand on Loki’s knee. Loki looked back at him as if the sun was shining for the first time in years. Gamora wanted to turn away from the personal moment, but at the same time she couldn’t look away. This emotion, this feeling, this was what existed in the world outside of Thanos. Loki had found it surprisingly quickly. Gamora really wanted to find it too.

“I just want it on record that this sucks. It may have been necessary, I may come to accept it, but we are talking about it later,” Stark said stubbornly before gesturing to Nebula to go on. 

“Honestly, from there, the task was laughably easy. We made our way back to Sanctuary II. Presented the stones to our ‘father’. He congratulated us and sent us to the vault where the other Stones were kept. The guards let us in without question, of course, since we were returning with two stones. We took the Mind and Reality stones, hid them away and then just left. Thanos believes that we are resting after our endeavours. He likely won't miss us for hours yet.”

Tony clapped his hands together, rubbing them excitedly. The tenseness from before gone in an instant. “Alright, now we just need to pop these bad boys in the glove and boom, done!”

“It’s not quite that simple,” Loki clarified. 

“Of course, it’s not.” Tony’s shoulders slumped. 

“The power of the stones, even contained by the glove, it’s immense. You’d have to be amazingly powerful to use it, as powerful as Thanos,” Gamora explained. 

“Or... as powerful as father,” Thor suggested. 

That definitely seemed like the best plan. Odin was a very powerful ruler; if anyone, short of an Elder, could wield the glove, it was likely Odin.

“You’re right,” Loki groaned. “I really didn’t want to have to go back there so soon.”

“Sir, another craft is approaching orbit,” JARVIS cut in.

“Another small ship like ours?” Gamora asked, for a wild moment hoping for Quill. She had told him she was coming to Terra after all. 

“No, ma’am. This is far, far bigger.” JARVIS responded. A holographic image appeared in front of them. Gamora’s stomach dropped. It was Sanctuary II. Thanos had found them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, one more chapter of plot left! Here we go!


	35. Chapter Thirty-Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... here we are! One more chapter and then an epilogue to tie up loose ends! You ready? I'm not sure I am...

Tony’s brain was a constant loop of ‘fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck’ like some kind of profane air raid siren. Earth had no defenses for something on the scale of what had popped up in front of them. If Thanos fired on them… they were screwed. There would be nothing they could do to stop it. They would die, all of this would be for nothing.

“First, we need to get the Infinity Stones in the gauntlet.” Loki’s voice broke through Tony’s haze. Yes... Infinity Stones... powerful as hell. They couldn’t use the gauntlet themselves, but they weren’t defenseless.

“Right! On it! Meet me in the lab, it’s in the basement. It’s got the most security and best access to my tech,” Tony shouted as he was already dashing to the elevators. 

The elevators had never felt slower in his life. Tony kept calling out for a status update from JARVIS every ten seconds or so, but the information didn’t change much. Loki, Thor, Nebula and Gamora were watching Thanos’s approach from the lab. It didn’t make him stop asking though. He got the suitcase and time necklace from his super-secret hidey hole and ran back to the elevators.

“Ok, JARVIS, we need to do something about these elevators, they are crazy slow.”

“Sir, they are the quickest that current safety and zoning laws would allow for this very reason,” JARVIS responded.

“Fine, then I’m paying to change the laws,” Tony shouted as he ran out the finally opening elevator doors and into his lab. 

The four aliens were crowded around the gauntlet that had been propped up on his main desk. The four Infinity Stones that the women had obtained were already inserted. 

“Please tell me someone didn’t do that with just their bare hands?” Tony asked, throwing the necklace and suitcase on the table. 

Thor and Loki looked at each other guiltily. Tony rolled his eyes. Why did they keep forcing the role of responsible adult onto him? It was so annoying.

“Ok, one of you, get this suitcase opened, because I tried for like four hours…”

Before Tony could even finish his sentence, Thor had hit the lock with a zap of lightning from Mjolnir and the suitcase popped open.

“I hate magic,” Tony grumbled. 

“Number four hundred and…”

“Not the time, JARVIS,” both Loki and Tony yelled. 

Loki swiftly placed the Space and Time Stones into the gauntlet. It didn’t look too dangerous, but a small wave of energy dispersed from it as each stone was placed. 

“Sir, my communications are being overridden,” JARVIS cut in.

Tony looked over at Loki who immediately hid the glove just in time for a holographic screen to display. With only the present company as an example, Tony might have guessed that all aliens were model-level attractive, this guy would have dispelled that theory. He was purple, bald and had the weirdest chin Tony had ever seen. He was also big, burly and pissed. 

“So this is where my prodigal children have run off to,” Thanos, because this must be Thanos, mused.

“We are very much not your children,” Loki hissed.

Thanos ignored the remark. “I don’t suppose Corvus Glaive or Proxima Midnight are with you?”

“We killed them,” Nebula said darkly. 

“Shame, but better dead than betray their father I suppose. I will give them that.” Thanos shrugged. 

“I’m sorry, but is there a point to this little family catch up session? Because you are kind of interrupting my workday,” Tony cut in. 

For a moment, Thanos’s eyes were on him before he was apparently written off as a non-threat, and he turned once again to his three former children.

“I know you stole the stones, just as I know none of you are strong enough to wield them, not even you, Thunder God. So, hand them over to me, come back home and I won't destroy this entire planet.”

Loki snorted. “You forget, Thanos, we know you quite well. Well enough to know exactly how empty your promises are.” 

“Here I thought you’d become fond of this planet and the mortals, for all the time you’ve spent here, my mistake. I had hoped to spare you all, but you are replaceable. I’ll just have to collect the stones from the ashes of this miserable planet.” The screen dissipated as Thanos cut the connection.

“Shit, Loki, Thor, take the glove and get Heimdall to take you to Asgard. We’ll see what we can do on our end down here.” Tony practically shooed them towards the balcony.

“Thanos can intercept the bifrost now that he’s in orbit, it’s too late for that.” Gamora argued. 

“Damn it, are there any weapons on that ship that you brought here. Anything you can do?” Tony asked Gamora.

“We can stall him, leave you time to come up with something.” Nebula said nodding to Gamora and they ran out. 

“JARVIS, I want you tracking them at all times. Tell me if anything happens.”

“Yes, sir,”

Everything startled to rumble. If Tony hadn’t known better, he would think he was in Malibu during one of its worst earthquakes. But New York was not on a faultline, so he knew what this had to be. 

“Sir, the ship is entering the upper atmosphere. Nebula and Gamora are engaging, but I’m not sure how much time they have. The ship appears to be drawing energy for a large blast.”

“There’s no time,” Loki gasped. He grabbed the gauntlet from under the desk and put it on. 

Once again there was a small wave of energy and Loki cringed and drew his arm to his chest as if it pained him. After a moment, Loki looked up and stared right into Tony’s eyes. He wanted to open his mouth and say something, he didn’t know what, but based on what everyone had said, he needed some potential last words, something good right? 

Then Loki snapped his fingers. 

A burst of energy a thousand times stronger than the ones Tony had seen previously washed through the lab knocking everyone to their feet. With it came a bright white flash that blinded Tony momentarily. His ears rang and his head hurt and the sudden Afghanistan flashback was not doing him any favors.

The moment he came back to himself and his senses recovered, Tony’s eyes sought out where Loki had been. He was still there, but he was collapsed on the ground. His entire right side with the gauntlet was burnt black. Thor collapsed on the ground next to his brother, shaking him, trying to get Loki to respond, but he didn’t move. There was nothing. 

Tony was right behind Thor, sparing just the briefest glance towards the gauntlet to see all but the green Time Stone shattered, no longer glowing with power. 

“Sir, Thanos’s ship has just disappeared from all my sensors. Nebula and Gamora are missing as well.”

Tony didn’t acknowledge JARVIS, barely processed the information he was relaying, as he threw his arms around Loki’s still body. Pressed up against Loki’s chest, there was no mistaking the lack of pulse, absence of breath, all life extinguished.

They had won, but what had it cost?


	36. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp! Here it is! I'm posting today even though it's only been one day since I posted the last chapter both to minimize angst and because I had planned on getting this fully posted before I started on Frostiron Bingo. I hope you enjoy!

Looking out over the crowd, Tony could see that everyone was there, having already taken their seats. All dressed in their Sunday best, like you did for these kind of things. Tony had a shaky smile for Gamora, sitting with all the Avengers as if she had known them her entire life. It was fortunate that she felt comfortable with them, since Nebula couldn’t be with her. 

There was a guy sitting on her other side, Peter Quill. Tony hadn’t met him yet, but from how Gamora had described him, Tony figured they’d either get along great or kill each other within the first hour. He’d find out when they could get this all over with and he could finally eat. Eat and take off this awful tie. He hated wearing them, but this was for Loki. 

Tony concentrated on the crowd as a further distraction from where those thoughts led. He had to stay cool and collected for as long as he could. He was surprised that Odin and Frigga were actually here, even for Loki. He knew they thought this whole thing was trite and un-Asgardian, but they still came. That meant something. 

Tony took a deep breath. He wondered how he was going to be able to come up with the words he needed. He could talk and talk for days, but never when it mattered. Never about something this important. Someone this important. Loki was the one who was good with words. But Loki couldn’t help him with this. 

A light hand fell on his shoulder and he turned to smile at Pepper. She was radiant in a red dress and smiling supportively at him. 

“I can hear you thinking over there. Not planning on bolting are you?” Pepper asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Are you kidding? And miss Thor walk down the aisle with a bouquet of flowers? Not on your life!” Tony responded with a snicker; he was infinitely grateful for the chance to joke and calm his nerves. 

Ok, maybe Loki had insisted that none of them were going to walk down the aisle in that weird wedding step, clutching bouquets. But Tony could still hold out hope. After all, it was six months since they had defeated Thanos and Tony still maintained that they weren’t anywhere close to even for what Loki had done to him. 

Tony had a damn heart condition; he was not prepared to take that kind of a shock. He had been clutching the still, dead body of the man he loved and it just faded away under him, leaving only the gauntlet. Thor had grabbed his shoulder then and Tony looked up to snarl at him, only to see that he was gesturing to a another body lying on the ground. This too was Loki, but without the singe marks and, more importantly, visibly breathing.

It took a day for Loki to wake up, even with the top healers of Asgard working overtime. It had taken a week for Loki to be able to get out of bed and two before his magic returned. But all Tony had cared about was that he was alive. He was alive and could explain just what the hell he had been thinking. 

Loki had known that there wouldn’t be enough time to teleport to Asgard and get the glove to Odin, not and save the Earth as well. He hadn’t even had time to explain his plan. So he had created a clone to wield the glove, hoping to insulate himself from the majority of the blowback from the power surge. It had worked; it had probably taken about a decade off of Tony’s life, but it had worked. Which was the only reason Tony hadn’t strangled Loki in his sick bed. Tony had proposed instead. 

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/

“I’m still not sure I shouldn’t wear a suit,” Loki muttered, tugging at his cape for what was probably the hundredth time. 

“You said Tony liked you in your armour,” Thor said, just barely holding back the impatience in his tone. 

Things had been much less strained between Loki and Thor lately. He wasn’t quite up to calling him ‘brother’ quite yet, but he had asked Thor to stand up with him. The big oaf had actually had tears in his eyes when Loki asked. It had made Loki squirm uncomfortably, but he couldn’t say he regretted it. 

“Yes, but I’m going to be living here on Midgard, I should blend better. It would only take a moment with magic…” Loki mused.

“Wear the armour, there are fewer places to hide a weapon in those suits and they rip ridiculously easily,” Nebula added from where she was lounging in a chair in the corner. Loki hadn’t been able to get her into anything but her usual clothing, but he had managed to talk her into a flower crown. He grinned every time he looked at her. 

He and Thor were in their usual ceremonial armour, minus the helms. Anthony had joked that he didn’t want to be too turned on at their wedding. Loki had rolled his eyes at that, and then seriously considered wearing it. 

“I don’t think I’ll need to be concerned with battle during my own wedding,” Loki drawled.

“Which is exactly how they get you,” Nebula replied, tossing her knife up and down in the air. Loki chuckled. 

“Are you ready, Loki?” Thor asked then. 

Loki looked up at the clock and saw that they had five more minutes. 

“I haven’t even known him a year, Thor. That’s… a heartbeat. How could I possibly be ready?” Loki asked suddenly.

“It was a very eventful year,” Thor started. Loki scowled at him. “You’ve always known your heart and mind better than anyone else could. I know you would not have said yes if you weren’t certain that this was where your heart lies. You may not know all or even half of what makes Tony Stark who he is, but you know what you need to know. And to be sure, that apple in your pocket says that you have the time to find out the rest.”

Loki fiddled with said apple. It had been a wedding present from Odin and Frigga. A thank you for what Anthony had done to save the universe. It would make Anthony essentially Asgardian and match his lifespan to Loki’s. He couldn’t wait to give it to him.

“That was good, Thor. You may actually make a reasonable King one day,” Loki admitted. At least, a day very far in the future. 

“I’m not sure the throne is for me,” Thor sighed. 

“Your Jane?” Loki asked. He knew that Thor had seen her often in these last six months. 

“Maybe. It’s too early yet to tell.”

“Technically, you’ve known her longer than I’ve known Anthony,” Loki pointed out.

“You and Anthony have seen each other far more and been through much together; it doesn’t compare.”

“Then what makes you say that you might not want the throne?”

“I’ve lost my advisor, my right hand. What kind of king would I be without that?” Thor asked. 

Right at that moment, a few specks of dust just happened to get into Loki’s eyes making them water. It was an unfortunate coincidence as Thor probably thought it was some burst of sentiment. Still, if Thor wanted to believe that, who was Loki to dissuade him?

“Give me a hug, brother, before you give me a reason to want to stab you again,” Loki grumbled. 

Thor just grinned and pulled Loki into a truly backbreaking hug. Loki grunted, and managed to shoot a hand out and snag Nebula to suffer with him. It didn’t take five seconds before Loki was released so that Thor could clutch his side with a hiss of pain. Loki did the same. 

“See? Always leave room for knives,” Nebula said casually, tucking hers in various hidden pockets. “Now, are you sappy fools going to get this over with already? I want to drink.”

“Lead the way, little sister,” Loki said, gesturing towards the door. 

Loki had been cast as the ‘bride’ in this scenario, at least as far as the order of operations went. Since it had been discussed while he was still trying to appease Anthony into not killing him for almost dying, Loki had agreed without much complaint. So Anthony, Ms. Potts and Colonel Rhodes were all already standing up at the altar. Thor and Nebula walked in and then once they were standing in their places, Loki would walk down. When he was told to walk, Loki went. He completely ignored the boring instrumental music and strutted down the aisle like he owned the place. Like he was coming to own Anthony, which of course, in a way he was. 

The man in question looked like someone had punched him in the stomach. It should have looked pained, but all Loki could see was the love shining through. Yes, he was absolutely certain that this was his mortal. His mortal who was looking very sharp in an almost indecently fitted black suit with a red tie and vest. 

When Loki managed to tear his eyes away from his soon to be husband, he smiled at the people who were standing up for them. Then, he looked to the officiant of the ceremony and almost stumbled. The stubborn sorcerer from the sanctum, Wong, was standing under the arch. How in all the Nine Realms had Anthony managed to convince Wong to be here? Loki hadn’t seen any of the sorcerers since their first visit; Anthony had been the one to return the Time Stone while Loki was with the Healers. Loki took his place and faced Anthony who winked. He must have noticed Loki’s reaction. 

“Fate and some of the most powerful forces of the universe combined to bring together these two souls who, if not for chance so powerful it might be deemed destiny, may never have met,” Wong started. 

Loki was flabbergasted. So many syllables! And they were all so nice! Not just formal, but poetic. Loki could never have anticipated this. Anthony too seemed dumbfounded by this turn of events. He had obviously been anticipating some amusing monosyllabism again. And here Loki had thought Wong couldn’t stand them. 

“All who are gathered today will have to try to live with that. They may have saved the universe, but their combined egos will likely be what breaks it apart in the end.” Wong continued. 

Anthony let out a surprised bark of laughter and Loki couldn’t help snickering. Once they had laughed, it was as if they had granted permission for the others to do so as well. It wasn’t as if the gathered people didn’t know them. 

“If there are any of you who, like me, are only here for the free food, you will appreciate that we will now be moving on to the vows. I believe the future spouses will now fully appreciate the fact that they wrote the vows themselves and I will not be speaking for them.”

Tony was still chuckling when he started. 

“I’m not sure if my vows can top that introduction, but I’ll do my best. Loki, we met because you recognized my epic genius and tried to steal JARVIS to help you take over the world. You really caught my attention when you asked me to hit you, kinky bastard. Then, I fell for you when you kidnapped me for our first date.”

Loki was curious if anyone would notice if he just turned invisible right now. His future husband had just called him a kinky bastard in front of his mother. But he couldn’t escape now, because he really should have seen this coming. 

“I know that those weren’t the best of circumstances at the time; I know that wasn’t the best you, but looking back on it, I can’t regret a single moment. Looking back, I only see those parts that, no matter what had been done to you, shone clear and showed me exactly who you were. A strong, smart, sexy man with a fetish for having people kneel to you.” Anthony winked at Loki and then got down on one knee taking his hand. 

“So, here I am, kneeling for you. I know this is traditionally done at the proposal, but you were kind of in a hospital bed so I missed out. Figured I could work it in here. Loki, I promise to always love you, that’s an easy one. I promise that whenever I cannot be there, you will always have JARVIS, who will probably help better than I can anyways. I promise to live, laugh and fight, all by your side, to the end of our days because there is no place in this universe I would rather be.”

Anthony stood up again and kissed Loki’s hand. Loki smiled at him, blinking through tears. Genuine tears that he would happily admit to. Trust Anthony to set low expectations and then blow them out of the water anyways.

“Anthony, you want so desperately for everyone to see this image you’ve created for yourself, that of the jester who takes nothing seriously, the billionaire, genius, playboy philanthropist. I was intrigued by all the parts of that image. I knew that they were all part of you but they weren’t  _ you _ . JARVIS may have been what drew me in, but you, the real you, the light and the dark, the joy and despair, the hero and the guilty; that is what kept me by your side. And that is where I too want to be, for all of our days. I spent a millennia feeling lost, like I hadn’t truly found my place. Standing with you fits in a way nothing else ever has. I am, at the heart of me, a selfish creature. I don’t want to spend a single moment without that feeling of belonging ever again. So, as I promise you my love, I must also ask if you could do me the honor of spending eternity by my side?” 

Loki drew out the golden apple and presented it to Anthony. While the mortal’s face was surprised, it wasn’t confused, which told Loki that Anthony knew exactly what the apple meant. Their eyes met once again and there was so much to be seen in Anthony’s eyes, in his face, that Loki wanted to hide or blush, but he just soaked it in. 

“Hell yes!” Anthony whooped, snatching the apple from Loki’s hand and taking a big bite. Loki laughed as the assembled guests cheered. 

“Without further ado, because I’m not sure any of us can take more, by the power vested in me by the Sorcerer Supreme, I now pronounce Loki Skywalker-”

“Wait a second!” Loki’s heart jumped in his chest. Was Anthony calling it off? What had suddenly happened? “One of your names is Skywalker? How did I not know this? Loki Skywalker, the jokes write themselves...”

Behind Anthony, Pepper ducked her head in consternation. James cleared his throat pointedly. 

“Ah, yes, not the time. Carry on!” Anthony flashed Loki an apologetic grin. Loki just shook his head. 

“-and Anthony Stark married.”

Loki and Anthony looked at Wong for a moment, not entirely sure that was it, but he looked back at them expectantly so they assumed this was where they were supposed to kiss. Maybe a rehearsal wouldn’t have gone awry? Too late now. Almost in unison they shrugged and then leaned in for a kiss. It was brief and sweet, not anything like those they usually shared, but they were also in public. The crowd cheered and it was a very touching moment. 

“Let’s eat,” Wong said and then just started walking down the aisle and out to where the reception was set up. The rest of the guests looked to Loki and Anthony, unsure if they were supposed to follow or not. 

“You heard the man,” Anthony gestured and the people trailed out. 

Thor clapped Anthony on the shoulder and winked at Loki before walking on. Rhodey did the exact opposite, which made them both roll their eyes. Pepper and Nebula, however, completely ignored the newlyweds, they walked by, Nebula held out her arm, and Pepper took it with a sweet smile and they walked down the aisle to the reception, looking very comfortable with one another. Far too comfortable for what Loki thought was a tangential level of interaction thus far. 

There was a moment of silence. Loki was sure that they made quite a sight, if they hadn’t been entirely abandoned in favor of very expensive free food. The two men still stood at the altar, looking down the aisle at the two women they loved best, arm in arm with what Loki was sure was matching faces of shock and horror. Loki suspected Anthony was working through the same series of steps that Loki was, coming to one conclusion...

“If she hurts…” They both started at the same time, turning to one another. Anthony was holding out his finger chidingly while Loki was clenching a fist. 

They both clapped their mouths shut and glared at one another. Loki quickly ran through the potential scenarios that could result from this series of circumstances. 

“I’m doomed,” Loki moaned. 

“Why you?” Anthony asked. 

“If Nebula hurts Pepper, you’ll kill me. If Pepper hurts Nebula, Nebula will kill her and then you’ll kill me. I can’t win.”

Anthony thought this over for a moment. “Yep, your only chance is if they live happily ever after.”

“And how likely is that to happen?” Loki snorted.

“Uh… hello?” Anthony gestured between the two of them. 

“Yes, but we’re special, darling. The most powerful forces in the universe had to combine to create something this magical,” Loki cooed.

“Awww, still being sappy. I wonder how long this will last?” 

“At least until after the honeymoon sex,” Loki replied. 

“Yes!” Anthony responded, pumping his fist. 

“We should probably join our guests,” Loki mused. 

“Or… we could skip straight to the honeymoon sex?” Anthony countered.

Loki appeared to think it over for a moment. “Best we at least pretend that we care that they all came.”

Anthony sighed, but held out his arm for Loki to take and they walked their way into their wedding reception.

/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/,’/

Tony and Loki were stopped before they made it into the reception hall by none other than Frigga and Odin. 

“Congratulations, darling. I’m so proud of you,” Frigga said, pulling Loki in for a hug that Loki actually allowed. 

Tony and Odin nodded awkwardly to one another. 

“Congratulations to you as well, darling,” Frigga said, wrapping Tony in a hug as well. It was nice. He hadn’t had a motherly kind of hug in a very long time. Once he’d been fully enveloped Frigga whispered in his ear, “Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for him.”

Tony didn’t know what to say to that, so he just kissed Frigga on the cheek. Her pleased smile seemed to indicate that it was an acceptable response. 

“Please consider visiting Asgard again soon; sometime when you aren’t bedridden,” Frigga prodded. 

“We’ll give it some thought, in a few centuries, once my sentence is done, of course.” Loki said deceptively lightly. 

“You know your sentence was lifted when you saved the universe. It was the least I could do,” Odin grumbled. 

“Yes, it was,” Loki said coldly.

“Well, that makes our honeymoon slightly less illegal,” Tony said to lighten the mood. 

“Less fun as well,” Loki said with a grin. Tony chuckled. Yeah, this was going to be awesome. 

They made regretful and apologetic noises and quickly foisted Loki’s parents off on Thor. Tony could practically feel the tension lift from Loki every step they walked away. It would take far more time for Loki to cool down with them as it would for Thor. After all, Thor hadn’t lied to him Loki’s entire life. He’d mostly just been an ass of an older brother. 

It was fun to step into the reception and see all the disparate people mingling. Gamora was talking to Bruce and Tony just managed to catch Bruce telling her that she was a very lovely shade of green. Gamora responded flatly that he wasn’t. Tony still couldn’t tell if Gamora had a sense of humor or not, but it was funny anyways. Meanwhile, Quill was spouting off to Rogers about sixties bands, and Steve was busy furiously taking notes. 

Clint and Natasha had completely ignored the whole ‘no one dances until the wedded couple’ rule and were tangoing down the dance floor in a very professional manner. It was enjoyable as hell actually, and made Tony doubt how his own dance moves would measure up for the first time in a long time. Wong was either still at the buffet, or at the buffet again, Tony couldn’t tell. Rhodey was chatting with Fury and what the fuck? Fury came? That was unexpected. He was even smiling. Or at least, the corners of his mouth were vaguely tipping up, but Tony was going to call it a smile. 

Tony was pleased to see that Agent had convinced his cellist to attend. Nebula and Pepper were the only ones actually sitting at the high table since Thor was still talking to his parents and Rhodey had apparently been shanghaied by Fury. They were being disgustingly cute. Pepper had stolen Nebula’s flower crown and Nebula was trying to look annoyed by it but was failing miserably. Yes, that was going to be trouble. But Tony was not worrying about it on his wedding night. 

Since Clint and Natasha had already started the party off, Tony decided, fuck it and pulled Loki onto the dance floor. Loki pulled him into a slightly more formal boxstep and they got another round of applause. 

“I don’t believe this is the proper way of doing things,” Loki hummed. He didn’t seem too put off by it though. Loki leaned into to Tony, resting his head against the side of Tony’s, so that Tony’s nose was tucked in his neck. They were probably closer than was appropriate, but what the hell?

“Since when have we ever done things the way we are supposed to?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup! We had to end on a sappy note. Pretty crazy how different the epilogue is from the first chapter huh? But I like the progression and I hope you do too!
> 
> Once again, kudos to my adorable brain-mate Rabentochter for coming up with the idea for this and for working out the plot with me. We did it! On to the next tale!


End file.
